Awake My Soul
by AntigoneBlack
Summary: PAUSED. AU. Caroline Mikaelson never thought she would see the day she went against her brother. Nick Fell never thought he'd die before he turned 18, only to live again. Together, along with the Salvatore brothers they will have to protect Elena from her fate as the doppelganger. Steroline/Klaroline. Stelena/Delena.
1. Prologue

**Authors Note:**So basically I just really liked to play around with the idea that Caroline is the Original and Nic is the baby vamp. This is what came of it. Please tell me any way that I can make the characters closer to their canon while still following my AU. Also the character Lukas is going to be the Klaus of this story, and Caroline is more like Rebekah. Niklaus and Rebekah's names have been changed to Nicholas (nick) and Rebecca for the purpose of this fic. If for any reason I get deleted you can find me on tumblr as sansa-stark. Or LJ also as AntigoneBlack

I own nothing.

(990)

A gasp of air floods into Caroline's lungs, dazed she looks around her home. There is blood on her hands, but why? Clutching onto her abdomen she sees the source of the blood. As she looks at the wound it starts to close… but what is going on? Lukas's arms wrap around her as he finds her in their home.

"Brother, what has happened?" she says barely above a whisper.

"We died, but we are alive, that's all I know," he told her, gathering her long blonde hair. He started to tie it with the ribbon that she had used earlier in the day and left on the table. All Caroline could feel was thirst. She was thirsty, but nothing seemed to satisfy her.

"Mother!" she cried when she saw her mother walk into their home. In her hands was the chalice that was only used in grand occasions. Esther brought it over to her children.

"Drink, drink it all," she told Caroline. Caroline did as she was told, drinking in the red liquid. She nearly spit it out when she realized what it was. Blood. Her mother's blood, but the thirst wanted more. So she took her fill and then Esther refilled the glass for her son.

(June 2009)

"What the hell, Elena?" Nick asked as he was being dragged further into the woods by his lifelong friend, Elena. He was in the middle of a great conversation that would become a hookup with a redhead named Emily if Elena hadn't so rudely interrupted.

Elena tilted her head at him, giving her patent 'you have got to be kidding me' face. "Emily has been with half the basketball team, I was saving you, really."

"But she hadn't been with the Football team yet! Fine, whatever, why did you bring me out here, because I am damn well sure it wasn't for the reason that Emily would have brought me out here for," Nick gave her a smile.

Elena rolled her eyes. "It's about Matt. He's always discussing the future and acts like we are going to be together forever. I don't want him making all his life plans based on me, you know? We are sixteen! I don't want to think about marriage and kids, I just want to be a teenager."

Nick listened, still a little frustrated that he was the one being dragged away from the party for girl talk. Wasn't this what she had Bonnie for? Sure he probably was the one with the best insight when it came to Matt, but still Emily Stevens was totally going to go home with him tonight and Elena spoiled that.

"Break up with him. If you see your future and he's not in it then you have a different plan than him. So you have to end it. He's going to be broken, but it will be better for everyone. Can I go now?"

"You are a jerk, but you give good advice. Go."

(1927)

Caroline was sitting in her favorite booth with her brother, drinking champagne and looking out at the crowd that was gathered in the speakeasy. All walks of life gathered in this underground club, and that made for some very crazy nights. From across the room she saw him enter, tall and broad shouldered with dark blonde hair. She smiled and got up from her place.

"Looks tasty, good choice darling," Lukas said with a smirk. Walking confidently across the bar she positioned herself to maximize his chances of noticing her. It worked almost instantly and a tap on her shoulder was the introduction she had been waiting for.

"May I have a dance?" the young man asked her.

Caroline turned around and looked surprised, as if she hadn't noticed the man at any point in the evening. She looked into his green eyes and gave him a half smile. "I don't know, why should you?" she asked flirtatiously.

His head tilted and he leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Because I'm a monster, and if you don't I might just have to eat you up."

Caroline closed her eyes at the feeling of his breath on her neck. Now she was interested in him, and for more than just a snack. She leaned in and whispered back to him, "Good, let's dance, monster."

Pulling him onto the dance floor she was glad to hear a slow blues like song start to be played by the band. He held her close and she pressed herself up against him, wondering just how much of his statement was true. "Do you have a name, monster?"

"Stefan," he told her flatly, as he twirled her again.

Caroline played with the name in her head and knew that this wasn't going to be the average affair.

(Present day)

Nick knew that it was never a good idea to go anywhere with Tyler Lockwood, and this was no different. What was left of the car was mangled he was barely able to get himself out of the car. Out of nowhere Tyler just stopped driving, swerving off the county road and into a pole. Walking alongside the car Nick worries about Matt, who was in the back seat. They were leaving the founder's day celebration, heading to the party after changing out of their period clothes before they crashed.

"Matt, Matt!" Nick yelled, trying to look for his best friend.

"Nick! Are you okay? I'm okay!" Matt's voice said from the other side of the highway.

And then he fell over.

"Damon, you didn't!" Elena said sternly from outside her friend's hospital room.

"He would have died, Elena. The injuries he had? There was no way that he would have made it," Damon explained. "Besides, it will heal him and be out of his system in 24 hours, and Nick will be none the wiser. I just saved your friend's life."

Elena sighed, knowing that he was telling her the truth. She took one last look at her friend before she left for the night.

Nick awoke when he heard the door open. He was starting to feel a lot better, it was like nothing had happened. He saw Elena walk into the room, but her hair was still in curls. "Elena?"

"Nick, I was so worried about you," she said with a smile, "I know it's late, but I had to see that you were okay. You should sleep, really."

Something was wrong about her voice. Elena would have been by much earlier than this, and would know that he woke up with loud noises. "You aren't Elena…"

Katherine grimaced and swiped the pillow from under his head. She covered his face, smothering him with the pillow. Although Nick was strong he was unable to overpower this woman and found himself having to give up, knowing that this was the end.

"Tell your friends the bitch is back," Katherine told him as he took his final breath.


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. Except Lukas, but not even him really.

Nick awoke slowly and looked around his hospital room. Rolling his neck to the side he rubbed it with his hand. Why was his throat sore? Then the night before came back to him. Elena smothered him, but no it wasn't Elena, or was it? Whoever it was looked just like her.

Then he felt the thirst. He was starving, his throat was dry. Nick grabbed the glass of water next to him and drank it all. No satisfaction. He picked up the pitcher of water and drank it down. Still he felt the thirst. He stood up from the bed, no longer feeling the physical issues of the crash. Nick threw open drawers trying to find something that would satisfy his need. His hunger. Then he saw it. The blood. Hanging on a rack.

"No. Disgusting," he said under his breath but he couldn't stop looking at it. Nick licked his lips and then the pain started in his mouth. Running over to the mirror he looked at his reflection. His eyes had gone from their grey-blue to dark, veins appearing underneath. And his teeth, his canines grew and became sharp. Confused and shocked Nick lost control for a moment.

And found himself dripping the torn blood bag all over the floor. "Shit," he muttered, wondering how he was going to get rid of the mess that he had created. That didn't matter right now though, because the blood was so good. He needed more.

Caroline brought the pair of oversized brown sunglasses from the top of her head and rested them on her eyes. The sunlight didn't affect her as it did the other vampires, but she liked the way they gave her an air of mystery. Walking through the shopping district of Beverly Hills was always a favorite pass time, but she now found herself late in meeting up with her current witch on speed dial.

Walking into the coffee shop she found Helene sitting in a corner, laptop open and browsing some website or another. Caroline never really bothered with computers, but she did have to admit they were quite handy. She gave the witch a wink as she headed up to the counter to order her favorite drink, a venti iced caramel and vanilla latte.

Grabbing her drink she headed over to Helene and sat across from her. "So you told me that this news was too important for a phone call. What is it? Did you find her?"

Helene shook her head. "Actually, I thought I did. A source of mine in the witching world said that there was a young witch spending time with someone that matched the description of Katherine. Thing is, this girl is obviously human."

Caroline was glad her sunglasses were still on her face and Helene wasn't able to see her eyes go wide. Her head started spinning wondering if it could possibly be true. There hadn't been one for five hundred years, and before that another five hundred. Was it some kid of pattern. "Helene, you know who she is, don't you? Give me her name and her address. None of your 'witches are sworn to protect the earth' crap either."

The greek woman sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, but you didn't hear it from me, and you sure as hell aren't bringing me into any of this mess, got it? Town is called Mystic Falls, Virginia. Elena Gilbert is the girl you are looking for. Better get to her first."

"Don't I know it, I'll leave tonight. Send my love to Rob, okay?" Caroline grabbed her purse and her coffee and headed out the door, looking for plane tickets on her iPhone as she headed towards her car.

Nick walked out of the hospital in shock, completely confused on what he had just done. He had bit that nurse, and then made her forget everything. Shaking his head he started walking towards his home. It was a long walk, something he would have preferred not to have to do, but at this hour he didn't really think that he had a choice. Plus no one would believe him if he told them that he was released from the hospital at nine on a Friday. Then he remembered the fair.

'THE FAIR!' he thought to himself, cursing. He had been in charge of the whole thing with his sister, Rebecca. She had been working night and day for weeks, and so had he putting the whole thing together. It was the final piece of the week long Founder's Day activities, and he was in the hospital missing it. Nick decided to run over to make sure that everything was going according to plan and that his sister had completely lost her mind over the whole thing.

As he started to run Nick realized that he had a speed that was super human. It was like he could move faster than light, and before he knew it he was standing in front of the field where the fair was taking place. Everything looked to be going well, so he gave a sigh of relief. And then he was spotted.

"Nick? What the hell are you doing here?" Rebecca yelled as she walked up to him. She gave him a huge shove with the clipboard that was in her hands. "Aren't you supposed to be healing or something? I had to run this whole damn thing without you, you owe me big time."

Nick rolled his eyes and punched her arm softly. "But you did it so well without me, little sister."

"Fine, whatever Nick. Screw you. I have a ferris wheel technician to find." Rebecca stormed off towards the fair and left Nick standing there.

Nick just shook his head as he watched his sister walk away. He listened to the fair and played around with his new found senses. He could hear Tyler hitting on Brooke Leisman, trying to convince her that he could win her a teddy bear. Then he could hear Stefan saying sweet nothings in Elena's ear. Ew. Nick then gadged his attention behind him where a man was working on an electrical problem. He could smell the man, and could hear the heart beating in his chest.

In a flash the man was in his arms and Nick was digging his sharp fangs into the skin on his neck. He missed the artery the first time, cursing he tried again. Success. Warm blood started to fill his mouth and he took his fill.

"NICK?" a voice screamed. "LET GO OF HIM!"

Bonnie was shocked to see the man she thought was a friend biting the handsome boy who had been flirting with her only minutes before. How did this happen? How did Nick become one of them? Trying to think on her feet she used the only thing she knew how and gave Nick one of her headaches.

"SHIT!" Nick grabbed his head in pain, letting the body drop to the floor. He curled over and tried to make it end. He squinted to see that Bonnie was standing strong, staring right into his soul.

"Bonnie! Stop!" Elena yelled as she approached the scene.

Then everything went silent. Nick looked to see Elena and Stefan both staring at him in shock. Bonnie was looking at him with a look of pure horror on her face. And the carnival worker, well he didn't do anything. Stefan ran to him and crouched trying to figure out what had happened.

"No pulse," he turned to tell Elena.

His friends kept their distance from him, just far enough away that they could see what he had done but not close enough to show that they were still friends. Nick used his sleeve to wipe the blood off his face and didn't say a word. Stefan leaned over and told him, "It's going to be okay, Nick. It will."

This stare down continued until Stefan's older brother Damon arrived. "What do we have here?" he asked with a grin.

"You turned him! That's what happened. You turned one of my best friends into one of you. I can't believe you Damon!" Elena said giving him a forceful shove.

Damon tilted his head, confused. "I did no such thing. When I left the hospital last night he was human and fully healing. I saved the kid's life."

"Then why is there a body on the ground and blood on his face?" Elena asked.

Bonnie was too upset to deal with all of this. She turned to her friends and told them to take care of it, meaning Nick and walked away. Her friend was dead, and this vampire was not anything she wanted to deal with. She headed back towards the booth that she was supposed to be manning, leaving everyone else to clean up the mess.

Stefan returned to Elena and wrapped his arm around her and she leaned into his chest. Elena was conflicted. After the whole situation with Vicky she didn't want to see another person in her town become a murdering maniac that could possibly uncover Damon and Stefan. But it was Nick. The Nick that used to shove her into the lake when she was too chicken to get in the cold water. The Nick that gave her her first kiss when she asked him what it was like when they were thirteen. She couldn't just let him die.

Damon took action before any decisions could be made. He walked over to Nick and reached into his coat and showing his fangs to the younger man. "Look, Nick. I know you don't like me, but I can help you. See? I am one too."

"What am I?" Nick asked, his voice softer than usual.

"You're a vampire."

Damon wrapped his arms around Nick, pretending to give the other man comfort, but instead placing the stake behind his back.

"DAMON, NO!" Elena cried. The decision was made. She would not let her friend die. They would figure something out. Damon retracted from Nick and dropped the stake. Instead he picked up the corpse lying on the concrete and started to walk away.

"I'm a vampire." Nick mumbled, letting the words sink in. "I am a vampire."

Caroline got off the greyhound and entered the main square of Mystic Falls. First things first, she was going to need some better transportation. The bus had been disgusting and she was sick of having to compel people to let her rent a car. If she was going to be here awhile, she might as well buy something.

She saw a car dealership off the main stretch and ran over, using her speed to her advantage. After browsing she settled on a new BMX Series 7 750Li, top of the line sedan in silver. Now she just needed a place to stay. Her contacts had told her that this town has had its share of vampire problems in the past, and that wasn't much of a surprise to Caroline, considering it was the place that she was born as a vampire. Not that anyone around here knew that the history of this land went back that far. The community they lived in wasn't recorded in human history, only in the history of the supernatural. But through her digging she was able to find which families in the town to avoid, those which would know about the supernatural, particularly about vampires. It was through this search that she found a vampire ancestor of one of the town's living residents. The sheriff's mother had her life saved by a vampire nearly thirty years ago and was living in California. Through a few strategic phone calls she was able to arrange a stay with the sheriff as her 'going through a rough patch' niece.

Caroline pulled up to the house in the late afternoon and rang the doorbell. A middle aged woman with short blonde hair opened the door, taking a deep breath at the sight of her. "You must be Caroline," she said grimly.

"Yes, I am. Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Forbes," Caroline said with a smile. She stood in the doorway waiting for the okay to enter.

The Sheriff just stared, stepping out of the doorway. Other than her own mother she had never come in contact with a vampire before. She didn't know all the rules and customs. "You should call me Aunt Liz," she said when she realized that she was staring at the young woman. Liz actually did not know how old the woman was, all she was told was that the girl held a lot of power in the community of vampires. "Oh, come in! I forgot that part."

Caroline smiled and walked inside the home. It was small, but nice enough. It wasn't a Beverly Hills Mansion but it would do. Although she would have to ask Liz if she could hire an interior designer. The furniture made the space look much smaller than it was, an easy fix for a good shopper.

"Thank you for letting me stay once again. I will have to find some way to make it up to you," Caroline said. Liz showed her to her room and around the kitchen. She could see that the woman was nervous around her so Caroline tried her best to be as polite as she could. "What do you want to know about me? I am sure you have questions."

Liz walked towards the living room and sat on one of the old easy chairs. Caroline followed and sat on the sofa, sinking in between its cushions. An interior designer was completely necessary. The two talked for awhile and Caroline felt that this relationship just might work out after all.

Nick headed up to the door of his house, Stefan not far behind him. It was a lot to take in, but he was starting to understand what had happened to him. He still hadn't told anyone about the Elena that smothered him, and he wasn't planning on it. The whole thing was just weird, and didn't seem to make any sense whatsoever. Stefan had told him some of the rules of being a vampire, including not being able to enter his home.

The lights were off, and Nick was worried that Becca still hadn't returned from the fair. It would have ended hours ago, but with her need to control everything he wouldn't be surprised if she was still there, moderating the tear down. He knocked on the door and waited. Lights flipped on and before long his sister was peaking through the curtain.

"What the hell, Nick? Use your damn key when it's three in the morning," Becca stood with the door open. She started to walk away, pissed off at the whole thing. Nick took a step but found himself unable to move into the home.

"Bec, come back!" Nick called to her. She turned around and came back to the door.

"Just come inside the house before I kill you," Becca said as she walked towards her room.

Nick tried again and was able to enter his home. He took a deep breath, waved at Stefan and closed the door.

Caroline took one last look in the mirror. It had been a long time since she actually tried to look her physical age. Usually she tried her best to make her seventeen year old body to look as old as possible to be able to enjoy the perks of being an adult. Going to high school was never really part of that plan. But she knew that the doppleganger went to the high school, so there would be no better way of getting close to her than to become her friend. And she would have to do this before any of her brothers got the information that there was a new doppleganger. It did worry her though, would this be like Katerina, all those years ago?

Katerina had been her friend. She had not known that her brother meant to use her as a human sacrifice, just that she was important to breaking the curse that plagued him. The girl who looked just like Tatia but was nothing like her had quickly become one of Caroline's closest friends. Watching Elijah fall in love with her while Lukas was the only person on her mind was devastating to watch, but in the end it was Caroline who ended up heartbroken. Elijah and Lukas knew the girl was to die, it was only Caroline that had been left out of the whole thing. She was the one that had to watch her friend run for her life, and it was the first time she saw the ruthlessness of Lukas. Of his ability to not stop at anything to get what he wanted. When Caroline was told that the girl killed herself, she was the one weeping, mourning the loss of her playful and rebellious friend. Not Lukas, who sought revenge, and not Elijah who stood indifferent to the whole thing.

What would this Elena be like? She wondered as she grabbed the bag that Liz had prepared for her with the essentials of student life. Pens, pencils, a few notebooks and folders filled the bag, that despite its age, still had some style left. Liz gave Caroline the last minute directions of how to get to the office once she reached the school. It wasn't too difficult to remember and she found herself in front of the secretary within moments. Caroline pulled out her false identification, that claimed that she was Caroline Forbes of Fremont, Nebraska, 17 years old and exiled here after being caught with drugs in her room.

The woman at the desk looked her over sternly and at the fake school records that were in place for this Caroline Forbes. After clicking a few things in her computer the printer started and Caroline was handed a schedule, full of the average class load of a senior. Calculus, American History, French IV, World Literature, Physics, a free period, an Art class and Psychology. Looked pretty typical and Caroline figured it all should be easy enough. She attempted to flatter the assistant one last time before giving up and heading out the door.

Now she just had to find the actual classes. Caroline was given a locker number and a combination lock and was left to figure the rest out on her own. Wandering around the school she tried to figure out how she would get to her first class of the day, Calculus.

Then a face caught her eye. Stefan? she asked herself. What was he doing here? It must have been a trick, some mirage in the sea of teenagers that she was surrounded by. Caroline shook her head and continued on, finally finding the locker that she had been assigned.

"Hi! You must be new! I'm Shelby," a small blonde girl said in a high pitched voice. Caroline tried to put on a fake smile, but really she just wanted the girl to go away. "What is your first class? I will totally take you there."

"Calculus, Mr. Montgomery," Caroline answered flatly. She really would just prefer to be alone until she found the doppleganger, but she had a feeling this girl wasn't going to let her go easily.

"Oh he's tough! But that's near my chemistry class, I can take you there no problem."

Caroline groaned inwardly but followed the smiling girl through the halls on her way to her first class. When she reached the door she found herself nervous to enter. Caroline had never really been in a school before, what if she wasn't so smart after all. It wasn't like calculus came up in every day conversation, even if she had been alive for a thousand years. Taking in a deep breath she opened the door and walked into the loud classroom. No one noticed her entrance, not even the teacher, hunched over his desk.

Caroline walked up to him and tapped her nails on the desk to get his attention. He looked up at her confused and then checked his computer. "You must be the new student, Caroline. Grab a book from the pile in the back and take a seat. No time for fancy introductions in my class, we have real work to do today."

She nodded and did as she was told, taking a seat near the back of the room. This way she was able to observe the students around her so she would know how they acted, what they talked about. In California she had people thinking she was a fashion buyer who was twenty-three, and she was sure most of these kids wouldn't know the difference between a Gucci and a Prada.

One girl was staring at her, and Caroline turned to meet her gaze. A witch. A Bennett witch if she was correct in her thinking. The girl had the look of the powerful witches of the 19th century that held that name. "Hi, I'm Caroline," she said with a smile. Caroline knew better than to trust the girl, especially if she was in fact who she thought it was.

"Bonnie. So where are you from, Caroline? What brings you here?" Bonnie asked, obviously probing.

"Nebraska. The town I am from is called Fremont," Caroline started. She then brought her voice lower so that her other classmates wouldn't hear. "To tell you the truth, my parents thought I was in the wrong crowd and they shipped me off to my Aunt Liz. But I think I was just having a bit of fun, but no I guess that's not allowed or something."

Bonnie shrugged, obviously content with the lie that Caroline told her. The class started and all seemed normal, even if the math seemed like a lot to keep up with. Caroline tried her best to focus, but all she could think about was the boy that looked like Stefan. There was no way her Ripper would walk among these lowlifes, so she tried to shrug it off. After the class ended she followed Bonnie to an American History class.

When they arrived Bonnie walked straight up to her best friend. Caroline stopped in her tracks. It wasn't like her to stare, but the sight of the doppleganger was a lot to deal with. It was a perfect replica of Katerina, or of Tatia. The brown eyes and the small thin body.

"Caroline, come here and meet Elena!" Bonnie said with a smile.

Elena. Elena Gilbert. The doppleganger lives.


	3. Chapter 2

**Authors Note:** Once again, Hi guys. After this week I will be back in my own country so I should be able to post much more frequently. In case of emergency you can find me on LJ at AntigoneBlack and on tumblr as sansa-stark.

* * *

_(1927)_

_Caroline laughed as she spun in Stefan's arms. Their life together was so carefree, fun of nights of drinking and dancing. And even occasionally Caroline would go and sing herself. If she was feeling particularly bold that was. Lukas and Stefan had become close over the weeks that they had spent together, and for the first time since Elijah left Caroline thought her brother was acting like his normal self, carefree and playful. He just needed a brother. _

_The song ended and the couple walked back to their typical booth, Stefan's arm securing around her waist. As she slid into the booth she placed a kiss on his lips and looked over at her brother who scrunched up his face. In some ways Caroline wondered if her brother would ever really grow up. She rolled her eyes at him as she looked around the bar. "Anyone look appetizing tonight, brother?" she asked. _

"_I have had my eye on that couple there. Thought we could play with our food tonight, what do you think Stefan?" Lukas said with an evil grin. _

"_Sounds perfect, let me bring them over," Stefan said as he started to walk away. Caroline hated it when they did this, tortured their victims before they killed them. It was just too cruel for her, but she loved them both too much to stop them. _

_The night was coming to a close, the couple long since drained when the sound of police sirens started wailing on the street above the speak easy. _

_Stefan grabbed Caroline's hand and started towards the door. The crowd was overwhelming as the police started to enter the bar. A face in the dark blue mass running towards them was too familiar. "Father," she said softly. Caroline dropped Stefan's hand and found her brother. They needed to get out of town, and quickly. She didn't even notice when her necklace was torn from her neck in the madness. _

_Once they were in safety Lukas started to think through the plan. They would have to leave Chicago, and quickly, their lives depended on it. He started to tell Caroline exactly what their next move was to only be shocked at her response. _

"_No. Not without Stefan," she said firmly. Caroline had never loved anyone in the way that she loved Stefan. For all his anger and rage, he also was loving and sweet, and she wasn't going to let that go because her father was on their heels again. They had been running forever, she was sick of running. _

"_It's not safe little sister. We have to leave now, and he can't know about Mikael. You know that. No one can know our weaknesses, Care, Philadelphia has plenty of good looking men for you to fall in love with, now let's go." _

_Caroline stood still. She had to think about this. A choice was laid out in front of her, leave now with Lukas and continue this life on the run, never having anyone other than Lukas but knowing they were safe, or leaving him and going with Stefan. Living a life of risk but also of love. "No, I'm staying with Stefan. Goodbye Lukas." _

_Caroline ran back to their apartment to get her things before heading over to Stefan's to tell him what happened and to run away with the love of her life. She rang the bell to his building and waited for him to come out to her. Only Lukas beat her there, when Stefan came to the door he looked at her with a blank face. "How can I help you, miss?" _

_Stefan was gone. He had forgotten all about her. Crushed she started to sob and ran from the door. Now she was completely alone. This was the punishment that Lukas gave her. For eternity she would be alone._

* * *

Nick woke up around midday, glad that it was Saturday. Extending his arms, he stretched and looked around his dark bedroom. Unlike most of his peers his room was relatively neat, with only his clothes from the night before sitting on the chair instead of their place in the hamper in his closet. He would have to find a way to get the blood out of his white undershirt before his mother took the wash. He would have to ask Stefan about that…

Getting up out of the bed he stretched again before walking over to the window, pulling open the thick shade. Burning consumed his entire body. His skin was on fire, and quickly he pulled the shade back. "What the hell?" he said out loud. The skin on his arm was going from pink and blistered to its beige color. Throwing on a pair of sweat pants and his old Virginia Tech tee Nick walked back over to his bed and picked up his phone.

"Yeah?" Stefan asked, obviously distracted.

"Hey Stef, wanna tell me why I just got third degree burns trying to open my blinds?" Nick answered sarcastically. He was not really pleased by this whole situation. He had seen both of the Salvatores in the daylight, why was it that he was playing the Dracula – demon of the night thing?

"Oh that… Yeah most vampires can't go out in the sunlight. I'll see what I can do about that…" Nick could hear giggling in the background and was now sure that he didn't want to know what was distracting his friend. "Elena I am on the phone…"

"Well I will chill out here in the dark for now, go back to whatever it is that you were doing…" Nick hung up the phone and walked over to his door, hitting the light switch next to the doorframe. He threw the phone onto his bed and paced his room. What the hell was he supposed to do until Stefan 'figured it out'? How would he convince his family that he needed to be in his dark room all day? Faking a hangover would work for now, or maybe just saying he needed rest, but how long would that last?

Around three in the afternoon Nick heard the doorbell ring and his mother's call. His friends were here, was he well enough to see them. "Send them up!" he yelled back. He knew that this would be a sore point for his overly polite and traditional mother, but it was a little difficult for him to navigate the house to be able to walk his friends to his room like he should.

A minute later, after what Nick was sure to be apologies for his rudeness from his mother, Elena and Bonnie walk into his room. Bonnie doesn't even look at his face, instead taking a seat on the desk chair that sat near the window. Elena pulled one of the shades, causing Nick to dart across the room. When he saw where the light hit he was able to find a spot on the bed that was out of the direct sunlight and settled down.

Elena was trying her best to navigate between her two closest friends but found herself at a standstill. Bonnie was against anything and everything vampire, especially after all the mess with the Founders day mishaps. Then there was the whole killing the carnival worker thing… "So Stefan remembered that Katherine's witch friend Emily was the one that made the rings that they wear to allow them to walk in the daylight. It's a pretty rare spell, but Bonnie did find it in her grimoire."

"Great, because we all know this gorgeous face needs to be shown off in the sunlight. Do your witchy thing and I'll forget the whole you being a witch and not telling me thing," Nick said looking towards Bonnie.

Her face scrunched, giving her classic disapproval face. It was one that he had grown accostumed to over the years, but this ignore act was something completely new to him. Bonnie stared blank face at him, pouring over his every feature, trying to find the friend that once lived inside this monster. She couldn't trust this Nick, the Nick that killed that poor guy.

"I will do this on one condition," Bonnie said, holding her head up high. She was going to stick by her moral compass, for better or for worse. That was always something that Nick respected about his friend, even if they often disagreed.

Nick rolled his eyes. Typical. "What is that, Bon?"

She gave him a mad glare and started to say what she thought. "No more killing or attacking humans. I will not make you have the ability to go out in the sun if you are going to use it to kill people."

"Easy. Deal. You really think I want to kill people?" Nick asked, disappointed that his friend thought so lowly of him. Even though he may not always act like it, Nick had a moral code that he lived by and not killing people was a not something he found acceptable.

"Well… I don't know. You are a vampire, so you have to get the blood somehow?" Bonnie replied shortly.

Elena saw tensions rising and decided that the best thing to do was just to move things forward. "Bonnie, he agreed to your terms, and Stefan already told me that he was going to teach Nick how to go into the forest for animal blood. No humans will be harmed. Now what do you need us to do for this spell?"

Nick shrugged, still a little upset that Bonnie really thought that he was going to make a habit out of killing people. He still felt pretty awful about the whole thing at the carnival, the man's face never seemed to leave his dreams. Nightmares really. How did this happen to him? If vampires were real, what else is true?

Bonnie opened her purse and grabbed an antique ring and placed it on Nick's bed. Nick stared at it, giving a disgusted look. He would have to wear this for eternity so Bonnie could have picked something a little nicer than the ring with the black stone.

She gave Nick one last glance, trying to determine if she was doing the right thing in helping him be able to walk in the daylight. Witches were supposed to mistrust vampires, history has shown that they go against their word and are truly monsters according to her heritage. Even though it was Nick, how could she trust him now that he was one of them?

"Okay, okay, just give me a minute," Bonnie opened up the Grimoire that she brought with her that listed the spell that created the rings that the Salvatore brothers were made by Emily Bennett.

Elena and Nick remained silent as they watched Bonnie mutter under her breath and stare intently on the ring. She stopped and looked back up. "That's it?" Nick asked, considering no real change or magic trick really happened to show that it worked.

"Yeah that's it," Bonnie told him.

Nick grabbed the ring off the bed and put it on his finger. He was going to have to see it before he believed it. Walking around the large bed Nick got closer to the window and stuck his hand into the direct sunlight. No burns, no pain. Stepping in front of the window he felt the sunshine on his face.

"I guess I'll be going then," Bonnie said as she sat up from the chair. She walked out the door, knowing that she was not going to get the praise that she deserved for helping him out.

"You really should have said thank you, you know," Elena told Nick with a frown.

"I do know that, but I didn't. The woman thinks I am going to turn into some crazy pyscho killer, so why does she get my respect?" Nick snapped back.

Elena just shook her head as she watched her friend stand in front of the window, looking at the outside world with new eyes.

* * *

Caroline used the weekend to get herself more adjusted to the town. It didn't take her long to find the decent places to get clothes and other necessities and figure out the make up of the town. It was pretty basic, with a population that was nosy and cheerful, much like any small town in the United States. Nosy wasn't always the greatest thing for a vampire to run up against, but she would have to find a way to make it work. Also she found the local blood bank, and was rather surprised to see that she wasn't the only person trying to break in.

When she walked up to the back door of the building she could hear the noise of someone inside, someone that was obviously not supposed to be there. Caroline waited, knowing the potential of getting her cover blown and stood against a wall for the person to leave. A tall dark haired man in a leather jacket snuck out the door with a large duffel bag. Caroline picked up on the smell of blood and stopped him before he had the chance to get away.

"And who might you be?" he asked her. Damon was clever enough, he knew that it was another vampire, but he wondered what she would possibly want to do with this town if word had gotten out about what happened at founders day with the stakings.

"If you don't know who I am you are safer not knowing," Caroline said with a bit of attitude. It was better that most people didn't know who she really was. What was to say that she could trust this vampire? People always wanted something out of the Originals, vampires for centuries had assumed that her family had all the answers. They were the most powerful vampires in the world, that was true, but that didn't mean they wanted to solve every little dispute. "Caroline. And before you ask, I am older than you."

Damon gave a little laugh. Whoever this woman was she was feisty. He liked that in a person, generally speaking. "I would never ask a lady for her age, I was raised better than that. Damon. Damon Salvatore."

Salvatore. The image of the blonde man from her past flashed through her mind. Stefan. Could this be the brother that tried to hold him back, that unleashed the ripper only to want to control it? He didn't look anything like Stefan, but there was something about the knowledge in his eyes that made her know that it was true. Stefan was in Mystic Falls. But why?

Caroline didn't want to reveal that she knew Stefan on such a personal level, but she was curious about their reasons for being in the town. "Well then, Damon Salvatore, since you just emptied the blood bank I was going to steal from, I think you owe me a drink."

Damon gave her a small smile and a nod. "If you play nice maybe some of these bags will be yours. My car is over here," he said pointing at an old black mustang.

"I'm sure I will, let's go," Caroline retorted as she walked over to the car and sat inside. _This will be an interesting night_, she thought to herself.

* * *

"So it's not the same as human blood, but it keeps you from harming humans, so it's a solution," Stefan explained as he walked Nick further into the woods that surrounded the town. Stefan himself never really did care for animal blood, but he knew what human blood could do to him so this was the way to keep himself as sane as possible. "With human blood you are much more likely to fall off the deep end. Turn emotions off and killing without guilt or concern. It's not really great for staying in the same place for a long period of time, especially in a town like this…"

"Like Damon?" Nick asked. He really didn't care for the older Salvatore, and knew that Damon was the reason that he was now a vampire, at least part of the reason.

Stefan just nodded his head. Damon was getting better at keeping away from live prey but it was still risky to be stealing from the local blood banks and hospitals so frequently. Stopping he looked around and determined that this was a good place to start. Nick was confused as he waited for Stefan to explain, but the older vampire was too busy listening to the woods around him to instruct Nick to wait. After a few moments he turned back towards Nick and gave his plan, "Okay, so there is a deer about 500 meters from here. Can you hear it?"

Nick shook his head. Of course he didn't. Then he started to focus on the noises of the woods. What first appeared to be silent was actually full of life. He could hear a squirrel racing up an oak tree, and a bird flying high in the sky. And then he heard it. The deer. Or at least something about that size moving through the trees. "Yeah, I hear it now."

Nick raced ahead, towards the sound and spotted the animal quickly. With his new reflexes he was able to easily outrun the young doe and grab it around its neck. Stefan caught up to him as he was sinking his sharp teeth into the neck of the animal. Taking his fill Nick dropped the animal and licked his lips as his canine teeth started to retract. Blood still covered his face, but this time he made sure not to get it on the old black henley shirt.

Stefan just shook his head. The issue with deer was that if you killed one, you then had a corpse to deal with. Much like a human. He should have remembered Nick's impulsive nature would become even more irrational as a vampire. "Now what are you going to do with the rest of it?" he asked pointing at the body that was lying on the forest ground.

Nick shrugged. What did it matter? "Deer die all the time. Let mother nature take it, Stef. It's the circle of life and all that."

"What if someone were to find this deer with the huge bite marks in it's neck? What do you think they would assume killed it? This is why you need to stick with smaller animals Nick. Bunnies, squirrels. This is the blood that no one will notice, not deer."

Nick rolled his eyes. This whole thing was stupid anyway. He wasn't going to kill anyone, but he could drink from bags like Damon. Then he remembered that he did promise Bonnie, and he needed to get her to believe that he wasn't some kind of crazy pyscho killer. Maybe once she realized he's still the same guy he can switch back to the real stuff.

"Why don't you drink human blood anyway?" Nick asked.

Flashes of his wild days passed. The 1910's and 20's and even the more recent incident with Elena. How much pain and suffering he had caused. The faces of his victims flashed through his mind. The look of fear in their face when they realized their fate. This is why he had to stop. To protect himself, and to protect others.

"I am worse than Damon. Well I can be. The emotions turn off and I become something that I'm not. It's not really something I am proud of."

Nick couldn't imagine this side of Stefan, this monster that he spoke of. Stefan was pretty much selfless where Nick was concerned. He would have died for Elena, Nick knew that to be true. How could this killer be hiding inside? It made him wonder if there was a monster in him as well. And who that monster might be.

"Every emotion, from anger to happiness, it's all magnified. That's why so many people shut it off, Nick. Don't shut it off. It may seem easier than sadness or anger, but don't. Indifference is the worse thing that can happen to a person, it brings out the worst in mankind."

"Okay, Stef. I won't." Nick lied easily. But when he thought about his life, about the pain and suffering that he endured, that his sister had endured, all he could think about was making it all go away. If anger was magnified, then revenge would come to those who deserved it.

"So why stay?" Caroline asked as she sipped on her drink. Damon had just told her how he came to this town to free his lost love, only to discover that she was never imprisoned in the first place. That was over a week ago, and he was going to stay in Mystic Falls. If the chances of being discovered were so high, why risk it to stay here?

* * *

Damon sighed. This is the same question that he had been asking himself since the night of the comet. Since he discovered that Katherine wasn't waiting for him. That she was out there, and she wanted nothing to do with him. "My brother, I guess. In life, we were the closest. And we never let anything get between us. When we were turned without her, he was the one that got me to drink. I never forgave him for cursing me to live eternally without her. Now that she's gone, well, we can be brothers again." He didn't mention Elena. He couldn't deal with that right now. The feelings he had for her were not just because of Katherine, they were something else entirely and he just couldn't bear to face them. That's why he took this blonde out for a drink, to get his mind off of things. Only for her to bring it up.

"You could both leave, you know. I just don't see the point in being in your hometown if it's so dangerous for you," Caroline lifted her eyebrows. She had to know why Stefan was here, why he was staying. If he didn't come for Katherine, than why was he here?

"It's nothing to worry about really, I got myself on the council, the group of families that take care of vampire situations. So I think I can keep Stefan and I in the clear. And Stefan has his reasons," Damon muttered the last part under his breath.

Caroline knew that she wasn't going to get much more out of the man, so she moved on to more light hearted topics knowing that Damon might be a good friend to have. If the vampire could keep her from getting discovered it might be worth the effort of spending her time with the cold man in the leather jacket.

Nick had been spending most of his nights at the Salvatore house lately, getting tips and lessons from the older vampires, and to spend some time away from home. He walked into his house late in the evening and tried to sneak in the best that he could.

His mother heard him and came out of the living room to greet him. "And where do you think that you have been the last few nights? You angered your father."

Nick rolled his eyes. "What doesn't anger him?" he said as he walked by her and up the stairs towards his room.

"Don't let your father hear you being that disrespectful, Niklaus."

Nick slammed his door closed and got ready for bed, falling asleep almost instantly. Only to be awoken an hour later to a woman standing over him. The Elena look alike. The one that killed him.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked her.

She laughed and flashed a smile. "Katherine. And you, my boy should be dead. Considering I killed you. But you seemed to have lived. No worries though, I have great ideas on how to use you. Say, Nick, do you like to play games?"


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Elena is still a member of the Cheer Squad because she would have been made captain instead of Caroline (as in the show) and so she remained on the team, but promoted Becca to captain in her place. Also I gave you all what you have been asking for and allowed the two to meet. But it wasn't in the original plan, so I'm just being nice.

Thanks goes out to my lovely Erika, the Leslie to my Ann, the Izzie to my Meredith for encouraging me and being a proofreader for me. She is no longer on but you can find her at caroline-mikaelson on tumblr and read her AMAZING Klaroline fics there, which I am more than glad to beta for her. Also to Avee (primeverdeens on tumblr) for helping me make a few decisions on this chapter.

Once again you can find me at sansa-stark on tumblr!

* * *

In the morning Nick wakes up from his startled sleep to remember the incident from the evening before. The woman, Katherine, had come into his room and talked to him about helping her. He didn't know why he would, but it did make him realize that the Salvatore brothers had been keeping a lot more from him than he initially thought. When he realized that he had been kept in the dark about all the supernatural parts of his friend's lives he was pretty upset, and part of him held a bit of bitterness that Elena didn't trust him enough to tell him about it. But was it enough bitterness that he would go along with Katherine's games and forget about his friends?

Loyalty was extremely important to Nick. He had had enough people betray him more than once to know that people don't change. You had to stick with the ones that really cared, and rid yourself of them when they didn't any longer. Nick wondered what and why Elena had been keeping from him. He could understand the whole 'my boyfriend is a vampire' thing, but her life had been in danger and he knew nothing about it.

But did that mean that he wanted to work with Katherine and whatever her plans for him were? He had tried to figure out what she wanted with him but she liked to keep things to herself, as he discovered quickly. She had given him her phone number and she had already been texting him things that she needed to have done. One of which was keeping Elena away from Stefan for a day.

So he started to drive his car over to the Salvatore boarding house, and was not surprised to see Elena's car already parked in the long driveway. Stepping out of the car he walked into the house and into the living area to find Damon reading a book. "Hey."

"Fell," Damon said blandly, using Nick's last name instead of his first. The two were never on great terms and when Nick realized the love the brother had towards the already taken Elena, things had just gotten worse.

"Stefan and Elena around?" he asked.

"Yeah, probably. Hadn't seen her leave. Fell, what do you think happened with that Lockwood kid on the Founder's Day thing? What did you see?" Damon asked, closing the book that he was holding and placing it on a nearby table.

Nick shrugged. The accident was pretty much a blur to him; everything went so fast. "We were driving to the after party, and blasting music to keep Tyler and I from fighting and then out of no where the guy grabs his head and starts screaming. We crashed after that I would guess. I don't remember anything until the hospital."

"Tyler grabbed his head like he was in pain?" Damon asked curiously. This along with the appearance of Tyler's uncle in town was starting to add up to something really suspicious.

"Yeah, it's like he had an aneurism, I don't know the science behind it, but he walked away scratch free," looking back on it Nick did realize that it was rather odd. Elena still hadn't told him the whole story about what was going on that night, but he did know something was wrong.

Damon shook his head in disbelief. Something was seriously weird about the Lockwood family and he was determined to figure out what it was. He would have to talk to Alaric right away and see if there was anything in Isabel's research about the town that might explain things. Not that Nick needed to know any of this. Damon still wouldn't trust the new vampire until he had to.

Stefan walked down the stairs and Elena followed behind, heading towards the door. She didn't notice Nick there, and left without a word but Stefan turned to face him. Damon took this as his moment to leave as well, leaving Nick and Stefan standing in the living room. "Any particular reason you decided to visit?"

"Katherine," Nick said calmly. He figured that the man would know the name.

Stefan gave a look of confusion. "What about her?"

"She's the one that killed me. In the hospital. She smothered me." Nick was rather direct in nature, and that was something he had been trying to work on, but this wasn't the moment. He needed to get the facts out on the table so the two men could make a game plan.

"She's here? In Mystic Falls?" Stefan asked.

"Considering she was in my bedroom last night I am going to go with yes on that one," Nick rolled his eyes. Obviously Stefan wasn't getting the point. "So are you going to tell me who this woman is other than Elena's evil twin?"

"Sit down, it's a long story," Stefan said, pointing at one of the velvet couches nearby. Nick did as he was asked and took a seat, while Stefan went and fixed them both a drink, whiskey. It was ten in the morning and Nick didn't know Stefan to be the alcoholic type so he figured it must be pretty serious.

"Katherine Pierce was my first love. I lived here my whole life and never met anyone like her. She came to Mystic Falls as an orphan of the war that was going to stay with my family, who ran the boarding house," Stefan commented, gesturing at the home, "until the war was over. She was playful and caring. Sweet and innocent, or so I thought. I fell in love with her. And then Damon came back from the war, sick of its injustice and fatigue. In the end, Katherine was in love with both of us, and we fought over her. We both learned she was a vampire, which only made her more attractive. Damon drank her blood voluntarily, but I did not.

A civil war broke out within Mystic Falls when our fathers learned how many vampires were calling it home. They started a full-fledged attack on them that led to a hasty plan. So on Founder's Day 1864 the town used a tool that gave all the vampires massive amounts of pain and then used that to single them out and trap them into the old Fell Church. Your ancestors, along with Elena's and the Forbes and the Lockwoods locked them in there to burn to death.

But Damon and I found out about the plan and we were determined to save Katherine. We tried to stop her carriage and steal her away from her captors, but we were shot for our actions. As you can guess, we still had her blood in our system and we awoke in transition. I took the blood almost immediately, and forced Damon to live with me forever. He wanted to die, but I forced him to drink. Later on Damon discovered that the vampires were not dead, but instead sealed in a tomb under the old church and could be released with the help of the comet. That's what brought Damon back and caused all the panic on Founder's Day. Katherine wasn't in the tomb, never was."

Nick sat and listened to the story of Stefan and Damon Salvatore, about the woman that they had both loved, and he had to laugh. How is it that they would fall into the same thing again with Elena? Was it because she looked like the woman from their past? From the description of Katherine, she was nothing like the friend that he knew. Stefan just glared. "Stefan, laugh a little. It's a good story but how can you not see history repeating itself?"

Stefan shook his head. He didn't want to think about that right now. He needed to know what Katherine was up to. "Now that you know a little bit about Katherine, tell me what she wants with you."

"She wants me to help her. More accurately speaking she did want me dead, but now has decided that my being a vampire is to her benefit. She tells me things to do and I do them or she kills me. Pretty simple, Stef."

Stefan couldn't figure out what the larger part of this plan might be. What could she want that was in Mystic Falls, and what did Nick have to do with any of it? "Okay so what did she ask you to do first?"

Nick shrugged. "Keep Elena away from you for a day. Tomorrow to be precise."

"Then do it."

* * *

"Hey Caroline, have you ever cheered?" Elena asked in the middle of history class. Caroline looked puzzled for a moment before she realized that the brunette was talking about cheerleading, the sport.

She hadn't, but she lied easily, "Yeah I was in it for a couple years, but then all the stuff with Steven happened and well… that's a long story. Why?"

Elena's eyes widened. This was exactly what the team needed, a strong base like Caroline could turn the team around. "Is there any chance that you would get back into the sport? We need a good base and you are just so bubbly, I thought you would be perfect."

Caroline flashed a smile. This was the perfect in with the group, and a chance to get closer to the doppleganger and gain her trust. "That sounds wonderful, what time do I show up?"

"Three o'clock today, Becca is dying for people to try out. Meet out on the football, you'll find Becca, she's the loud, angry blonde."

Caroline spent the rest of the day trying to remember exactly what a cheerleader would be asked to do. She knew that she could accomplish any physical task put in front of her but she was a little worried that she wouldn't know the terminology needed to pass the try out. Her phone was a great way to solve this problem and she spent most of her classes looking up cheerleading moves and tasks so that she would seem like she had done it before.

Walking out onto the football field she pulled her hair into a high ponytail and found the girl that Elena spoke of. She was shorter than Caroline with bleach blonde hair with some pink streaks in it.

As she approached the blonde turned to face her. "You must be Caroline. I'm Becca Fell, but you can call me Rebecca. We might really need the bodies, but I still want to make sure that our team is actually good at cheering, so here's what I need you to do…"

The girl started listing off some basic gymnastics and Caroline finished them easily and was even able to add her own spin to things. Becca tried her hardest not to look impressed, but she was. This girl could outshine her and she wouldn't let that happen. Caroline would be a base, a back-up to her shining star. Not that Caroline could complain, it's not like she joined the team to be a great cheerleader. She made the team and that's all that mattered.

Elena walked with Caroline back to the locker rooms to change and even asked her to join their group for a burger at The Grill after the practice. Caroline smiled and said yes knowing that this was exactly what she needed, a chance to become friends with the doppleganger before her brothers found out where the girl was. Or that she was even alive.

* * *

Nick was sitting on the bench for most of the afternoon's practice while the team worked on offense. Being on defense primarily himself and not needed for the drills and plays that were being taught left him with time to spend in his own thoughts. Football was much more difficult now, because it was too easy. He was faster than any human, could throw with more power than he could imagine. Pretending to be human was just difficult now. It led him to thinking about how long he could keep it from his family, when would they realize that he wasn't aging? When would Becca figure out that something was different?

Looking over at his sister leading the cheer squad he noticed a new face among them. A blonde girl stood with the team and she was rather gorgeous, that was the first thing he noticed. He watched closely as Rebecca worked the girl to the bone, asking for things that even he knew that she couldn't accomplish herself. The blonde did them all with ease and he sat amazed. Who was she? Where did she come from?

Finally he was used for a few plays, as defense to the offense testing their new plays. It was dull at best, he could see the actions that they were going to make, how their muscles were tightening to prepare. The thrill of the game was gone, lost on him now that he could tell his opponent's next move. If he listened carefully he could even hear their hearts beating. Nick felt his fangs release and quickly ran off the field.

Running into the locker room he sat with his head in his hands. What was he going to do? How long would he be able to keep this secret from almost everyone? What happens after? He moves to a new city? And then what?

* * *

Bonnie cornered Caroline in the parking lot as she walked to her car, stepping in front of her. The look in her eyes screamed trouble and Caroline could only imagine what was going to happen next. "You were great out there!" Bonnie started happily, but quickly her tone changed. She touched Caroline's hand, looking at the antique ring on her finger. Her look was cold as she realized that she was speaking with a vampire. "Blood-sucker. I should have known it. No one new comes to this town these days, and Sheriff Forbes doesn't have any family in Nebraska."

Caroline closed her eyes slowly. This is why she hated first encounters with witches. Their natural disposition was to distrust anything that was against nature, and vampires were definitely against nature. "I'm here to help, seriously," Caroline started.

Bonnie didn't say anything but gave a look at signaled that Caroline should continue. "If you weren't already aware, Elena is well… different. Supernatural." Bonnie nodded. "There are people in the world that want to hurt her. To kill her. And I want to stop that from happening. So I came here before they did."

"And how am I supposed to know that you don't want to kill her? What makes me believe that I should trust you?" Bonnie asked. She couldn't trust vampires, that was one thing that she had learned over the last few months. Not all of them are like Stefan. They were monsters out for blood.

"Elena is part of a curse. And I personally do not want that curse to be broken. It would wreck havoc on the world as we know it," Caroline explained starting to become annoyed with the witch.

"Which is?"

"The curse supposedly will make it so that vampires can walk in the daylight, well all of them who don't have witch friends like you, and would allow werewolves to be able to change at will. You can see how that would be a problem."

Bonnie thought it over for a second. Although she wouldn't trust the new vampire immediately, if she really did want to help keep Elena alive maybe it was worth the risk. She just wanted her friends to have normal lives, and already that led to Nick becoming a vampire himself. "Fine. But the second you betray us I will unleash magic that will make your head spin."

"Considering the line of witches you come from, I don't doubt it." Caroline walked past Bonnie and opened the driver's side door, slipping in and starting the engine to get away. This was becoming more complicated by the moment.

* * *

Nick left the practice early, even though he knew that coach was going to make him pay for it tomorrow. Not that running an extra few laps was going to be that much of a struggle anymore. Instead he went into the parking lot and got into the driver's seat of his battered old buick and started the radio. It was on some pop station that Becca loved, so he switched it to rock and pulled the seat into an incline.

"Nicklaus James Fell, I am going to kill you!" Becca yelled after slapping her brother's chest to wake him from his nap.

Nick woke with a start and blinked his eyes a few times to focus. He was in his car, and Becca was red faced and sitting next to him. Pulling the chair back up he looked over at his sister. He started the car and backed it out of the parking space, not saying a word to her. Sometimes it was just better to ignore her than allow her to freak out.

After a few stoplights he decided to ask about the blonde girl he saw on the football field. "Who's the new girl on the cheer squad?" he asked as if he didn't really care.

"A week has gone by with you barely even home, and locked in your room when you are home, leaving me to deal with Mom and Dad and that's what you have to say? Who's the hot chick?" Becca closed her eyes in frustration. She could not believe her brother for leaving her like that. "Where the hell have you been?"

"The Salvatores," Nick shrugged as he continued to drive. Once again the question rose in his mind, how long would it take her to find out that he was now different.

"You selfish asshole. I thought we made a deal, no leaving for more than twenty-four hours without consent. You could have at least warned me."

Nick frowned as they pulled into their neighborhood. He had screwed up already. He let down his sister, and he knew it. "I'm sorry Becks, really I am. Something came up and I forgot. Forgive me?"

"Not yet," she muttered. She always forgave him, he knew that to be true, but sometimes she liked to remain angry. This time he was going to let her. He deserved it. Plus how many more times would he get to have this conflict? Living forever meant watching your family die, so he wanted to get the most out of his sister now. Fights and all.

"Really though, what's that girl's name? What's her story?"

Rebecca rolled her eyes. "Caroline Forbes. She's the sheriff's niece I guess. Bonnie told Elena that she got shipped here after partying too much or something. Not too interesting, girl is pretty dull if you ask me."

"Well, I didn't ask you."

* * *

Caroline walked into the Grill a few minutes before the meeting time that Elena gave her. She wanted an opportunity to scope the place out for herself, and see if the bartender would remember her from her drinks with Damon. It was a different man at the bar and Caroline gave a small breath of relief. She didn't want to have to deal with the 'how old are you really?' question tonight. She just came to get to know Elena and her little friends and earn their trust.

She was standing looking out at the crowd when she was approached by a tall olive skinned man. He was rather attractive, she noticed that right away with ripped muscles and a smirk across his face. He was trouble, that she was also able to determine.

"Can I get you a drink?" Tyler asked smoothly.

Caroline quirked an eyebrow, there was no way that this guy was older than twenty, let alone twenty-one. She smirked back before coming up with her response, "I don't know, can I see your ID?"

He laughed and pulled out his wallet, grabbing a fake ID that did not even look like him. "Okay, you got me. I'm Tyler."

"Caroline Forbes," she said back with a smile. The guy was cute, and she didn't see her 'friends' around yet. "How about you go get me a coke, Tyler?"

He listened to what she had to say and came back moments later with a bottle of Coca-Cola in his hands. "Do you want to sit down?"

Caroline shook her head. "Actually I am just waiting for a few friends. Elena Gilbert, Bonnie Bennett, those girls. Have you seen them?"

Just as she said that she saw Elena walk in the door. There was something still so shocking for Caroline about seeing her bright smile. Flashes of Tatia's and Katherine's faces appeared when she saw Elena and sometimes it was hard for her to remember that they were different people. That this wasn't the weak girl her brothers fell in love with or the rebellious friend that she had so long ago. Elena was something else completely. She was bright and cheerful and was always trying to make the best out of things. From Caroline's personal research she discovered that the girl and her brother lived with an Aunt, that their parents had died the previous spring. Even after so much death and destruction the girl still had hope, something Caroline found admirable.

Caroline slipped away from Tyler and walked up to the girls, surprised when she noticed that he followed her to meet the girls. Elena gave Caroline a hug and a smile, and Bonnie just waved, still weary over the fact that she was a vampire.

The group took one of the longer booths, and Tyler made sure that he slid in next to Caroline, putting his arm around her right away. She grabbed it and moved it back to its actual place, causing Bonnie to laugh. Elena gave her a small smile, glad that Caroline was wise enough to realize that Tyler was bad news.

"We are just waiting for my boyfriend and then we can order. Have you had the bacon burger here yet? It's the best in Virginia, trust me," Elena told her, glancing over at the door every few moments.

Caroline smiled, "I guess I will have to try that then." She closed the menu as the door to the Grill started to open. A blonde man walked towards them and gave Elena a chaste kiss on the lips.

Caroline could feel the jealousy and anger starting to well up inside her chest. How could Stefan fall in love with Elena? Who was she? She wasn't a thousand year old vampire. She was just a silly girl. Caroline could see that he was different, the way that he presented himself was just different. Softer.

He stuck out a hand which Caroline shook. "Hello, I'm Stefan, you must be Caroline, the new cheerleader."

A fake smile plastered her face. How could she keep it a secret that she already knew who he was? She would have to pretend that she never loved him, that there was nothing between them. That would be the difficult part. "Yeah that's right. You're on the football team right? I thought I saw you out on the field today."

"Yeah I am a quarterback. Where are you from, Caroline?" he asked, trying to hide his suspicion. He had seen her today too, being able to do the cheerleading moves with ease. Anyone that came into this town was to be investigated, but he didn't want to scare her in case she was a normal girl.

"Nebraska," she lied. "Liz is my aunt, so when my parents need a place to send me off to this is where I was sent."

The group chatted for awhile about the teams chances at winning this year and if the team from Plainsboro stood a chance in the next game. It was different for Caroline to take part in this kind of conversation, it was almost too human for her to handle. She had never really had the chance to be a teenager and she had never really realized what she was missing. It was fun to just talk and laugh and flirt. No supernatural elements, just spending time together.

"So Damon went down to Duke with him to grab the last of his wife's things, her research material on local mythology," Stefan said off handedly to the group, focusing on Elena.

Caroline's ears perked up. Local mythology? Local mythology that could possibly lead back to her family. This was going to be trouble. "Mr. Saltzman? Like my history teacher?"

Stefan nodded. "They should be back late tonight, but I don't know how well Alar… Mr. Saltzman is going to handle all of it. Getting his wife's things, it's the final nail on the coffin, so he might not be around tomorrow either."

Caroline would have to go figure out exactly what they had discovered. She made a mental note to talk to Damon as soon as possible. And to remind him not to tell anyone that she was a vampire.

The conversation continued and the group enjoyed their burgers. Tyler continued to flirt with Caroline, and she responded playfully at best. Her mind was distracted by the sight of Stefan with Elena, and of the possibility that her history teacher might discover her true history. She didn't even notice as they stood up to leave and walk out the door that they ran into two teenagers, both blonde and obviously siblings.

The first was Becca, but with her was a taller guy with sharp facial features. His eyes brightened when he saw Caroline. Caroline just blinked, trying her best not to stare at the young man as they approached the group. After a few hellos he turned his attention to her. "Hey, I'm Nick."

Caroline gave her first real smile of the night, biting her bottom lip softly. "I'm Caroline."


	5. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Hey guys! I was traveling back from France over the last week, but from here on out I am hoping to have some faster updates! Just for your info, Nick and Rebecca are Fell's, I wanted them to be a founding family, and if you know the book!verse Meredith Fell is Elena's best friend along with Bonnie (not Caroline who is kinda a meanie in the books!) so Nick kinda replaces her. Hoping to get to some action-y stuff soon, and then maybe some romance? Guess we'll have to see... Nick and Caroline's worlds are just starting to fall together. **

* * *

Nick was a little weary about the whole plan. They had no idea what Katherine was going to be doing, and that made him more than suspicious. With Damon out of town and Stefan being the person that Katherine wanted to see, he didn't have any backup to make sure that Elena remained safe. Over the last few weeks he had been learning about all of the things that had happened right before he became a vampire and Nick was rather frustrated at how oblivious he had been. How had he not know that his closest friend's lives were in danger? Or that Damon and Stefan were something a little more than human? Nick prided himself on being able to connect the dots before other people, for being one step ahead of the pack and he had been so preoccupied with his stupid high school life that he hadn't noticed Elena's changes.

Elena doesn't know why Nick is so insistent on spending the Sunday with her, but she goes along with it. Stefan told her that he had some things to do anyway, and Alaric and Damon wouldn't be back from Duke until the evening so she needed the distraction. She arrived at the Fell house around noon to a very excited Mrs. Fell. The woman was a little neurotic, which was an understatement. Elena never let the woman know that she knew the family's dark secrets, so she allowed the woman to pamper her and play like their family was perfect. In small towns like Mystic Falls, everyone knew everything, but that didn't mean they did anything about what they knew. Especially when it came to people as important as Mr. Fell.

When Nick made his way down the stairs he found his friend sitting on the couch drinking a cup of coffee and chatting politely with his mother. They were discussing the warm autumn and Nick just wanted to shake his head. At least it was keeping Elena occupied for awhile. "Hey Lena, let me just grab a jacket and we'll head out. Mum, please stop boring her to death talking about the weather."

Laura Fell turned and gave her son a nasty look. She couldn't believe the way that he spoke to her in front of guests. It was one thing to be like that when there wasn't company, but another to speak like that in front of a guest. "Niklaus, is that any way to treat your mother?"

"Yes, Niklaus, you should really know better!" Elena said with a giggle.

Grabbing his dark denim jacket from the closet Nick walked into the living room and pulled Elena roughly from the chair. They walked out the door with Elena yelling a goodbye over her shoulder and headed towards her car. "You shouldn't let her do that," he told her.

"Do what? She just gave me a cup of coffee, Nick. You shouldn't have been so rude to her," Elena snapped back.

"Let her pretend that nothing is wrong all the time. He almost put her in the hospital last week. I know you noticed the way she was keeping all her weight on one side. Forget it, let's just get the hell out of here."

Elena started her new car, Jenna's older sedan, and started to head towards the mall. They had been close friends for years, but it was strange for him to be so insistent that they spend time alone. She had a feeling that he was going to continue to ask her more questions about her supernatural life and she wasn't really looking forward to it. "So what's the real reason you wanted to take me to see this movie?"

"Other than the fact that I love Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark?" Nick said with a little mischief in his eyes. He was trying his best to just take things as they come but this plan was already getting to be too much. As Elena drove he kept checking his phone for updates from Stefan, but hadn't heard anything yet.

"Other than that. I know that face Nick, and that one means you are up to something."

"So what if I am, let's go to the damn movie. For all you know I am just an accomplice," Nick told her. They pulled into the movie theater near the mall and parked. There was still quite a bit of time before the movie started so he turned to face her. "Who's the girl in the civil war clothes in the photo of Stefan's?"

Elena frowned. "Did you look in Stefan's journal? Nick, you shouldn't have done that."

"Well I did," Nick lied. Actually Stefan had shown him the photo during his story time. "Who is she and why does she look just like you?"

"Her name is Katherine Pierce. At least that's the name she goes by now. And I don't know why I look like her. She's the vampire that turned Damon and Stefan in the 1800's. Other than that I don't know a whole lot about her. Stefan refuses to talk about her and Damon… well Damon came back here to rescue her, only to realize she was never trapped. So he won't talk about her either."

"Damon came back for her?" Nick had not heard that part of the story. He just assumed that Damon came back to free all of the tomb vampires.

"Yeah, she was the love of his life. But ends up she didn't really care about him in the same way," Elena answered.

That explained a lot. Why Damon fell for Elena even though it was his brother's girlfriend. Why he was so devastated that after the situation with founder's day. He thought he was getting her back, only to realize she hadn't wanted him after all. "So where is she now?" he asked as if he didn't know.

Elena shrugged. "Hopefully far away from here." Elena threw her purse strap over her shoulder and opened the car door.

The two friends walked towards the movie theater and Nick took the chance to change the topic. "What's the story about the new girl? I have seen you two together a lot. What's she like?"

Elena laughed. Of course Nick wanted to know about her. He always had a thing for blondes. "Caroline? She seems sweet. Let me guess, you asked Becca and she didn't tell you anything about our newest teammate?"

Nick pouted, which made Elena know that she was right. Why was everyone giving him a hard time about wanting to know more?

"Ask her yourself, coward."

* * *

Damon and Alaric drove back to Duke in silence. What they had learned from the research assistant was a lot to take in. With the use of a moonstone, the bond between the sun and vampires could be broken. But it would also mean that werewolves could become savages whenever they would like. This new information also led them to the Lockwoods and their true identity. Wolves. A rare species, but the only other creature that would be affected by the device set off on Founder's Day.

Damon sent a text to the only other vampire that was currently residing in Mystic Falls, Caroline Forbes.

_What do you know about the sun and the moon curse? – D_

Caroline was out shopping for some clothes appropriate for cheerleading practice when she heard her phone vibrate on her hip. She put down the armful of clothes on a rack and grabbed the iPhone out of her pocket. The sun and the moon curse. Memories flashed before her eyes of the days running around England with Katerina, laughing and flirting with the men of the court.

_Depends on who's asking. – Care_

_Meet me at the Boarding House at 9. – D_

Sighing, she agreed and put the phone back in her pocket. She picked up the clothes and headed to the cash register, swiping her VISA without concern. Her credit limit was higher than most people's yearly salaries.

After killing a few hours doing homework for the first time in her life, Caroline told Liz that she was headed over to see Damon and left. Liz liked the older Salvatore, and found him to be trustworthy. She nodded, glad that her 'niece' was hanging out with some of the better people in the city, although she worried that Damon would try and stake the vampire as he was a member of the council.

Caroline walked up to the boarding house and knocked on the door. No one answered so she opened the door and stepped inside without a problem. _Stupid boys_, she thought to herself_, they should know better than that_. She wandered through the house looking for Damon when she heard water running upstairs. Her phone said the time was 9:05pm, she was on time. Following the noise she walked through what she figured was Damon's bedroom and into his spacious bathroom with a large walk in shower.

Damon turned off the shower and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his waist before stepping out. Caroline couldn't resist the urge to stare a little bit at his toned abdomen before returning to the real reason that she came over. "What did you want to ask me about?" she said as if she hadn't noticed the fact that he was mostly naked.

She followed him into his room as he changed into a pair of black jeans and a v-neck shirt. "So where did you hear about this curse?"

"Duke University. Alaric Saltzman's wife was a grad student there, doing her doctorate on local mythology. We went up there to get her things and to see if she had anything that would link back to the Lockwood Family," Damon explained.

"Did she?" Caroline asked. She thought about the Lockwood boy that she had met at the Grill only a couple days prior. There wasn't anything super strange about him, but she wouldn't use that to rule out the chances. She was one of the first immigrants to this area almost a thousand years ago, and she knew that the town had a lot of secrets.

"Werewolves. Do you know anything about the history of vampires and werewolves?"

"Yeah. We have hated each other for as long as anyone can remember. No one is really sure what started it. Wolves were almost extinct a couple hundred years ago, after a genocide done by vampires. The bite of a werewolf is fatal to a vampire, so the vampires decided to rid themselves of them," Caroline said smoothly. She didn't add that her family was the reason that werewolves and vampires were enemies, that werewolves killed her youngest brother and started the war that lasts till this day.

"Isobel was studying the wolf legends in this area and came across this," Damon said, grabbing a piece of parchment and rolling it out.

On it was a familiar drawing, something that Caroline knew well. Lukas had drawn it almost five hundred years previously to help his own mission of breaking a completely different curse.

"The sun and the moon curse. Yeah, I have heard of it. Never really believed it could be real though," she said acting as though she was in awe. "I can see why someone would want to be free from the pain of the sun, but is it worth the risk of being attacked by wolves?"

"Someone seems to think so. We have reason to believe this," Damon said, pointing at the stone drawn on the paper. "Is the reason that Mason Lockwood is here. Someone in his family has it, and he wants it to break the curse. Thing is, Elena is the doppleganger, and would need to be sacrificed to have the spell succeed. I am not going to let that happen."

If only you knew the truth… Caroline thought to herself as she nodded at Damon's statement. She had to admit that she was relieved to know that the group hadn't uncovered her family's secret, but if someone was out to break this curse that meant Lukas wasn't going to be far behind. And Caroline wasn't sure if she was ready to face off with her brother after eighty years.

* * *

Nick and Elena enjoyed the movie and found themselves laughing about some of the snarky comments that Tony Stark had made through out the film. As they walked towards the car Tyler Lockwood approached them. He handed them both envelopes, invitations to a gathering at his home.

Rolling his eyes he didn't even open the invitation before Tyler started to pick a fight with him. Both of the men had short tempers and liked to provoke the other whenever possible. "I'm planning on taking that hot blonde as my date, so don't even bother, Fell."

"Like she would go for an idiot like you, Lockwood. You should aim a little lower, like a freshman. Oh wait, you've slept with all of them already," Nick answered back.

Tyler ran at Nick and threw a punch at his jaw. Soon the two were on the ground, going for any punch they could get. Elena just stood there open mouthed, knowing that she couldn't do anything to separate them. She only hoped that Nick wouldn't show the full force of his strength, knowing that would be cause for concern.

The two were pulled apart when Mason Lockwood came up to his nephew and pulled him off of the Fell boy. "What the hell are you two doing?"

Tyler and Nick continued to glare at one another, neither of them saying a word.

"Are we going to see that movie or not?" Mason asked. Tyler grunted and headed towards the door, but Mason stayed and looked into the eyes of the new vampire. "Mason, Mason Lockwood. I don't know what the deal is between you and Ty, but if you pull anything like that at the Ball my sister and law will have your head. So try and behave yourself."

Nick just nodded and Elena went to sit down in the car, waiting for him to join her. When he did step into the vehicle he was lectured on why he was to avoid physical fights with humans if he wanted to keep his cover as a human with everyone. He knew she was right, but he just wanted to see Tyler taken down a few notches.

* * *

Heading outside of the Salvatore house Caroline headed towards the center of town to grab some dinner before heading back to the Sheriff's house. That was the one downfall of living with Liz, the woman was an awful cook. So that meant she had a few too many meals at the Grill, but it did give her some time to flash smiles at all the locals that spent too much time there and to befriend the cute busboy, Matt, a long time friend of Elena's.

She placed her order for a Bacon Chicken Sandwhich, one of her favorites and placed her elbows on the bar counter. Placing her head in her hands she went through her thoughts, thinking about all the things she had learned from Damon that day. It was interesting that the Sun and the Moon curse still existed and that someone was still after it. How long would it take for her brothers to realize what was happening and follow her into town? And would she be able to keep Elena safe?

"Hello there," a deep voice said from her left side. A tall muscular man sat down at the stool next to her and flashed her a grin.

Caroline shot the man a mean look. She really didn't want to have to deal with a man hitting on her after the day that she had. Turning to face him she looked at his brown eyes that held flashes of gold. She knew what that meant. Wolf. And this wasn't him flirting, it was him wanting her dead.

"Dog," she said under her breath. Caroline pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her face and looked over to the kitchens, hoping that her food would be done sooner rather than later.

"Blood-sucker. If you think that you can break that curse before we can, you have another thing coming. And when we do, you better watch out," Mason Lockwood told her harshly.

"We? Who is we? You and your meager band of puppies?" she said with a laugh. She didn't want her concern to show. The last thing that she wanted was that curse to be broken, but not because it would allow wolves to run all month long. More because of it's real potential. To create a monster.

Mason laughed as well. He liked her, she had sass. "I'm Mason. Mason Lockwood."

Caroline noticed his tone change and her face moved into a small smile. She was still concerned about the fact that he was out to break the curse but maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all. "Like Tyler Lockwood?"

"Yeah, I'm his uncle. He's not… Well not yet anyway. Never will be if I can have a say in it."

"I'm Caroline. Does he know that you are?"

Mason shook his head. Before she could ask him anymore questions Matt walked out from the kitchens with a paper bag with her food inside. He flashed her a huge smile as he gave her the bag and Caroline walked away as if they weren't in conversation at all. The last thing she needed was anymore connections to the supernatural. As soon as she got into her BMW she gave Damon a call.

"About Mason Lockwood… You know he's a werewolf, right?" she said when she heard his hello.

* * *

After being split up by Mason, Nick and Elena headed off to one of Elena's favorite restaurants, a pizza place a couple towns over. They used to go there any time there was anything to celebrate, birthdays, anniversaries, winning soccer games. Since her parents died though, Elena had hardly been there at all. It brought back a lot of memories.

Nick was working on his pizza while Elena went through possible gifts for Jeremy for his birthday when she received a text message from Stefan.

_Come to the house. NOW. In trouble. – Stef_

Elena showed the text to Nick and he stood up immediately, throwing a twenty dollar bill on the table to cover the cost of the pizza. They raced towards the car and were at the boarding house within a half hour. When they arrived Nick went in first and checked the place out before allowing Elena to join him. When they found Stefan he was strapped to a chair, bound by silver chains. Nick tried to remove them himself but quickly injured himself.

As Elena started to work on the chains, Stefan explained what happened. "Katherine came over, just like you said she would," he started.

Elena shot Nick a nasty look, upset that he would keep something like that from her. "Katherine is here after all, I thought so." She hadn't told Stefan about the kiss that her aunt Jennna witnessed between 'her' and Damon, but she had a feeling that Katherine was really the one responsible.

"She came over here, trying to get information out of me. Wanted to know if I knew anything about a moonstone that my father would have owned in the 1800's, and if I was really that attached to Elena. When I didn't have any answers," Stefan gestured towards the chain. "She had some gloves on so she could chain me up and force answers out of me. Whatever it is, she really wants this stone. And Elena."

Elena just shook her head. She didn't know why she mattered so much to the vampire look alike. It was strange how much they looked like each other, but did that have to be something supernatural? Looking at the world that she lived in she found the answer. Yes. It was supernatural and there was a reason that she was an identical copy of the mischievous woman that once held Stefan and Damon's hearts.

* * *

After school the next day, Bonnie corners Caroline in the parking lot. She has that determined look on her face that Caroline had already learned to associate with trouble. The witch stormed up to her and started to rant. "What do you know about Katherine Pierce? The vampire that turned the Salvatores?"

Caroline had heard the name, she even thought that the town had both lived in Paris a few years ago but she had never met the woman. Shrugging she answered Bonnie. "Heard of her. She has quite the track record. Little bit of a heart breaker can't seem to make herself go unnoticed type. Why?"

"Are you sure that's all?" Bonnie asked again. Caroline nodded. "She's in Mystic Falls and she wants Elena. You said you were here to protect her, so this might be your chance. What could she want with Elena?"

Caroline shook her head. She didn't really want to be the one to lie about the curse to Bonnie, since she had a feeling the woman's wrath was much like that of her ancestors. "Elena is… different. She is the key to a curse that many have tried to break for centuries. I know a few truly dangerous people that want nothing more than to see it broken, and you need Elena to do it."

"You need Elena? Like as a sacrifice?" Bonnie wondered. She knew from the hours studying the grimmoires of her own family that magic always came with a price. That there was a balance to nature that needed to be fulfilled.

Caroline nodded again. "Now you see why I am so keen on saving her."

"What does it do? The curse?"

"No one really knows for sure. Rumor has it that it will make it so all vampires can walk in the daylight. But that's just one version," Caroline said honestly. She did say that it was a rumor, not that it was what she thought was true. And other than her family, no one actually knew what the curse would do.

* * *

When Nick arrives home that evening he is greeted by his sister, sitting cross legged on his bed. "Becca, what the hell are you doing here?" he asked exhausted. After peeling Stefan off of the chair they had spent quite a bit of time trying to track Katherine's location after she had left the boarding house, but had come up dry.

Rebecca picked up a piece of parchment paper and held it up to Nick's eyes. On it written in beautiful calligraphy was an invitation to a Masquerade Ball and fundraiser hosted by the Lockwoods. The Mayor's family was responsible for a few events of this nature every year, but not many people were expecting it after the death of Mr. Lockwood only a few weeks before.

"Great another fundraiser, what does that have to do with you sitting in my room when you have a perfectly fine one down the hall?"

"Because you are going as my date, and I already ordered a great dark red mask that will match my dress perfectly," Rebecca said with a satisfied smile. She was an overachiever at best, over the top perfectionist at worst. Everything she did had to be done correctly and look just right or her life was over.

Nick's mind thought only briefly of other date possibilities, a glimpse of blonde taking up most of that thought before he nodded his head. If Rebecca already went through the trouble it was going to take a lot more than possibility of a date to talk his way out of it. "Sounds great, now get out of here."

Rebecca picked up her things and walked out pleased when the thought of Katherine crossed his mind. Katherine could and would show up to the Ball, especially if she thought the Salvatores had what she wanted. Looking just like Elena would come in handy if she wanted to sneak into the party unnoticed.

Nick pulled out his phone and called Stefan. "Did you get invited to the ball?" he paused as Stefan gave an affirmative answer. "What do you think are the chances of Katherine wanting to be there?"

* * *

Caroline arrived at the Sheriff's house more than a little frazzled by her encounter with the werewolf. Damon said that he would be taking care of it, but she wasn't sure if she knew exactly what that meant. Probably that she was going to kill it, but what if he had been working for her brothers? Would they notice his absence and come into the city themselves? That was a risk that she was going to have to be willing to take. That Mason was just another nobody that thought he could free himself from the curse of the full moon.

Getting out of the car she noticed that another car was parked nearby, a truck that she didn't recognize. Walking into the house she could hear Liz speaking with a man. Putting her food down on the dining room table Caroline walked slowly into the main living space to see Tyler sitting on her couch, chatting with her 'aunt'.

"Hey," she said as she walked further into the room.

Tyler stood up right away, putting down the glass of ice tea that he had been drinking. He walked over to Caroline and said hello. Liz got up as well and left the room to give the teenagers 'space'.

He handed her a thick envelope and Caroline opened it to find an invitation to his family's fundraiser. "Is everyone lucky enough to get a hand delivered invitation to this, or am I just special?" she asked with a shy smile.

"I was hoping that you would be my date, if that's cool," Tyler asked nervously. Caroline had never seen that side of the jock. She had always just assumed that the guy fit into the category of overconfident football player who was too cool for anyone, but at that moment she saw his vulnerability. He was just a guy, who happened to play football.

"Yeah. Yeah that would be cool," she said, smiling and looking down.

"Good. See you tomorrow then."

"Tomorrow," Caroline said as she showed him towards the door.


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N: This is the last chapter of the split scenes! Yay! After this there will be much more interaction between Caroline and the rest of the group, particularly with Nick! Also for the Steroline fans, please be patient it is coming. Thing is someone needs his memories back before things will get good.**

**Guest who left me a super long message: You are magnificent. Truly. I promise you the character traits you felt were lacking are going to be shown soon! Also the reasoning behind making Becca a little OCD will shine through in about… 3 chapters. It's all development for this fic, so I am sure if you stick with it you will see the characters really come into their own!**

* * *

"So you really think this is going to work?" Nick asked Damon and Stefan as they sat around the living room at the Boarding House. He knew that Katherine had some plans for the evening, she had basically told him so through her text messages. She wanted Elena for something, and was going to go to any lengths to ensure that.

Damon laughed coldly. "Yes, if there's one thing that Katherine can't resist it's a good party," he told Nick easily. It was the truth, a nice dress and a reason to dance and Katherine was set.

Nick just shook his head. He wanted nothing more than to take care of the woman that was manipulating him, but he wondered if the Salvatores could really outsmart her. If they could really get her caught unaware. Katherine was older, wiser than the two brothers and Nick doubted their ability to fool her. "Once we get her into the room, then what?"

Stefan took the chance to answer this one. He and Damon had decided together that they weren't going to give Nick too much information, only enough to get his assistance. The end goal was to protect Elena, and it was to their benefit that everyone else was involved as little as possible. They needed Nick for his link to the woman that killed him, but other than that he was to stay out of it.

"You are not stepping into that room. Bonnie is going to seal it like the tomb and that means no vampires get out. After that you will go about your night as if nothing is wrong, and try and keep Elena distracted from the fact that we aren't around."

Nick felt the heat rise in his cheeks. He was sick of being left out of the plans. If they wanted his help then he needed to know what was going to happen in that room. "Look, you two think you can be all clever and keep me in the dark, but that's not going to work any longer. You got me into all this supernatural bullshit so you need to tell me what the hell you're planning or I'm out. Your link to Katherine is gone."

Damon scowled, he never liked the attitude on this kid. Always had to be in the know, even before he was a vampire. "We are going to kill her."

"Okay, that's a damn good start," Nick said as he stood up from the chair. Kill the threat to Elena's safety, but then what. If this curse stuff was true Katherine wouldn't be the last ones to come after Elena. "What about the curse? Don't you think we should figure out what role Elena plays in all of this?"

"Because of course we hadn't thought of that," Damon snapped, rolling his eyes. "Yes we plan to see what she knows about Elena's role in this whole curse thing and then we kill her. That's more than you need to know, so shut up and leave."

Nick wanted to punch Damon, he was so sick of the guy's 'I don't care' attitude. He knew that Damon was as in love with Elena as his brother was, if not more and it wasn't fooling anyone. Nick didn't want to see her get hurt if he could help it and Damon was always the one willing to risk her life to save his reputation. Shaking his head he started to head out of the sitting room and towards the doorway. "I'll bring Katherine to you right before nine."

* * *

Caroline hated computers. The longer she sat in front of the new macbook pro the more she realized it. Hacking computers was just not her thing, but without having a good team around her she would have to just figure it out herself. She needed to locate Lukas before he found her, or more importantly Elena.

After almost an hour of breaking into the police database she finally found what she was looking for. "You idiot," she muttered, smiling to herself. Who was stupid enough to get a cellphone under their own name? She traced the phone to a town in Georgia not too far away from Mystic Falls. A day's trip at best.

She started to think through her plan of what she would say when she did get her hands on Elijah, when she noticed a series of text messages starting to hit that phone. Pulling them up she saw that someone was telling her brother about Elena and that they were going to bring her to him. They listed a meeting place to discuss the terms, an underground carpark. Perfect.

Caroline jumped into her BMW and headed to the location, out to see who these potential captors would be. She parked the car on the third level of the parking structure and waited, sending a unregistered text to the number saying that they should meet Elijah in a silver BMW.

Twenty minutes went by and Caroline found herself on her iPhone looking at dresses for the upcoming ball. She would need to find something appropriate if she was going to go as Tyler's date. He was a good guy, under the layers of jock asshole, that is, so Caroline didn't see a reason to say no to his request. As long as he remained human that was. She was browsing through the Bloomingdale's selection when she heard a tap on her tinted window.

Caroline unlocked the doors and waited for her guest to join her. When the door opened even she was surprised at who she saw. Trevor took one look at her before he started to run and Caroline sighed as she raced after him.

She had him pinned against the wall, hands around his neck when he finally stopped squirming. For over three hundred years she was in charge of tracking his movements, reporting to Lukas if they ever were within range to kill. And now here he was, and she didn't need to kill him anymore. She forgot why she even was supposed to in the first place.

"Caroline Mikaelson?" he gasped through the choke hold she had around his neck.

"Yeah, that's me. Now tell me why you're number is listed under Elijah's," she spat. This is not what she wanted. She wanted her brother. She was prepared for him, only to get Trevor instead.

Trevor struggled to breathe, and this was the moment that Rose appeared from the shadows. Caroline dropped Trevor and turned to face her as she explained their situation. "We were… we know about the doppleganger. And we wanted to fix things, bring her to Elijah, bring her to you in exchange for our freedom. We have been running for too long."

Caroline frowned. If they had been running all that time it was in vain. She barely tracked their movements over the years. Lukas was mad… over Katerina, Caroline finally remembered. They were the ones that killed her best friend. Who let her commit suicide? "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you this instant after killing my friend."

Rose shook her head. "She didn't die. He never told you?"

"Told me what?" she said, confused. There was no way Katerina had lived. She would have known about it. Katerina would have found her. They were like sisters once.

"She's a vampire," Rose told her simply. "Katerina… she was running from us. She tripped and got hurt. Trevor gave her some of his blood to heal. That was the night she hanged herself. Woke up a vampire."

It was Caroline's turn to shake her head. That wasn't possible. It couldn't be. "Where is she now? Where is Katerina?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her since the mid 19th century in New York. Knowing her though, she's sure to come find that doppleganger sooner or later," Trevor said, no longer holding onto his throat.

Caroline knew that they were telling the truth, but she couldn't believe her ears. If she had been a vampire all this time, where was she? Caroline walked away from the conversation, overwhelmed in her own thoughts. It was a lot to take in, and took most of the car ride home to even understand. Katerina was a vampire.

* * *

"Now after you bring that sister of yours into the house, you will come back out and find me. I am bringing a witch with me, but she doesn't need to enter the house, she will just go around the back. You will get the Lockwoods to invite me in," Katherine explained, swirling the wine around her large glass.

Nick wanted to roll his eyes. He wanted to just stake her now and get it over with. She was only out to ruin Elena's life and he wasn't going to let that happen. He didn't need the Salvatores to save the day. Nick could do it right now and they could just enjoy the ball. Then he remembered that they still didn't know what Katherine was after. So he sat and listened to her go on and on about what he needed to do for her.

"Why am I even doing this again? What's in it for me?" Nick said harshly.

Katherine shook out her curls as her smile widened. "So that I don't kill everyone that you love. Starting with that cute little sister of yours. Wouldn't want the town to think your daddy finally offed her do you?"

Now Nick was angry. No one spoke to him like this. Not ever. He got up from his chair and charged at the small woman on the couch. She countered him easily and held a wooden chair leg above his heart in just seconds. Nick grunted, knowing that he had lost this round. "Fine. What do you even need to be at the ball for anyway? What's so important about getting into that house?"

Katherine let him go and returned to her glass of wine. "I am led to believe that Mason hid something in that house that I need. Also, now that Mason decided to skip town on me I have other needs to work out at the ball."

Nick still was pissed off at her threat, and was just glad that she wouldn't be alive much longer. He couldn't outfight a vampire that was as old as her. So he would have to rely on the Salvatores, as much as he disliked that idea. The longer he was around Katherine the harder is was to believe that Stefan and Damon had both loved her.

"Okay, so I am bringing Rebecca at seven. I will see you then." Nick turned and started to walk away. He wanted to kill her now. Now that he threatened his family. The only family he really had. His sister. Nick pulled out his cell phone and started to text Stefan about what he had heard. Also to ask if he could do the honors of putting a stake through the woman's heart, but knowing that it would be in vain. The brothers had a few more reasons than he did about why they wanted her dead, they were the ones that would have that luxury.

* * *

_(1491 England)_

"_Katerina, do you not see the way he looks at you?" Caroline asked as she strolled through the gardens with her closest friend. At first Caroline had not enjoyed being in this country, of pretending to be of noble birth. And the language was just so guttural. It was disgusting. English was not the language Caroline preferred. French was much better. _

_Katerina flashed a smile at Caroline, and looked down at her skirts. "Yes, I would be blind not to. But really, Lady Caroline, I do not understand what your family wants with me. I am not from high birth…" _

_Caroline let out a little laugh. "That's what I like about you. There is no one at court that is ever their real self. Politics rule the court and that makes no one behave in their true manner."_

_Caroline hated lying to her, telling the girl that they were not interested in her more than just for her appearance. Frankly, she didn't know that she would take such a liking to the runaway girl from Bulgaria. They had followed her to England and over the last year had made Katerina Petrova into Katerina of Catalan, a noble woman in England looking for an appropriate husband. When Caroline first saw her she was amazed to be staring at Tatia after so many years. Though she quickly learned that the girls were nothing alike in personality. Where Tatia was timid and gentle, Katerina was independent and passionate. Lukas hated her immediately, but needed to gain her acceptance and love while he tracked down the rest of the items to break his curse, but Elijah was a different story. Elijah fell in love with the girl almost instantly, and was spending his nights trying to figure out a way to save the girl from her fate as a sacrifice. Caroline knew that Katerina must die, she had come to accept it, but she still loved the woman sitting next to her. _

"_If what you say about Elijah is true, than why is it Lukas that has asked for my hand?" Katerina asked curiously. _

_Caroline was surprised. She had not been expecting this turn of events. From what she knew they were close to finding the werewolf they needed, the last piece of the puzzle that would free Lukas from his curse. Allow him to be his real self for the first time. "I did not know of this, what did you say to him?" _

"_I said yes, of course. After everything that the family has done, who would I be to refuse him? I had no idea he cared for me in such a way, he never showed me affection before that moment." _

"_Oh Katerina, we are to be sisters!" Caroline said with a fake grin on her face. If Lukas was going to marry this woman, then the solution must be in sight. Katerina would die before she would see herself married, Caroline knew that to be true. It was that knowledge that broke her heart._

* * *

There was nothing worse than a tux fitting in Nick's mind. The women loved all these high fashioned occasions; any excuse to buy a new dress was not lost on them. But for the men it was different. It meant going into the tux shop, getting measured, poked and prodded only to get a suit for a night. At least that was the case if you were not one of the richer families in town. How Becca kept getting new dresses is one mystery that Nick was sure he didn't want to know the answer to.

So the Friday afternoon before the ball Nick, Matt and Rebecca found themselves in the formal wear shop at the mall, getting fit for a rental tux for the masquerade. Becca had wormed her way into coming along for some reason, making up some lame excuse about making sure that Nick's suit matched her dress but Nick could always tell when his sister was lying.

"Do I want to go with the hunter green to match Bonnie or the black?" Matt said holding up a green vest.

Becca sauntered over and grabbed the vests and started to hold them up to Matt, standing very close to him. Maybe it was Nick's raised senses or just his paranoia, but he had a feeling there was something more going on than just wanting to see which looked better on him.

"The black, definitely," Becca said with a smile. Matt smiled back, that awkward adorable smile that he generally reserved only for Elena and that's when it started to click for him.

"What the hell is going on?" Nick asked firmly.

Matt and Becca turned, their smiles turning into nervous frowns quite quickly. They were busted, and they knew it.

"Nick…" Matt started.

"No, don't say anything. Let me handle this," Becca said, putting a hand in front of Matt's mouth. She walked across the showroom where her brother was standing and started to speak softly. "There is nothing going on, okay? Even if there was it wouldn't be any of your business anyway."

"My best friend and my sister? Shit, Becca, that's totally my business," he quipped.

"It's not what you think, okay? He hasn't even asked me out yet, and he won't if you get all pissed off like you always do. I actually like him, and he's a good guy, even you can't deny that. So leave it be, okay? You owe me after that disappearing act," Rebecca told him.

Nick sighed, knowing that she was right. Out of all the men that his sister had spent time with in the last few years, none of them were anything like Matt. And he had been the one telling Matt that he needed to move on. "Okay, but if he hurts you I will not hesitate at ripping out his throat."

"I expect nothing less," Becca said with a smile. She turned and headed back over to Matt, and spoke to him in whispers.

Nick continued his fitting and walked away with a traditional tux, the cheapest rental he could find that would still look nice enough for the event. Unlike some of the other founding families, they were not made of money. That mostly had to do with his father's drinking problem, so they tried their best to cover it up.

"Don't you have to pick up your dress, Becca?" Matt asked as they were exiting the mall with their suit bags.

Nick shook his head, knowing that the only reason that Matt would possibly say something like that was so that he could come along too. "Yeah, we were going to do that once we dropped you off at The Grill. Wanna come with?" Nick asked being nice. If this is something that his sister wanted, he would at least give it a chance.

"Why not? Then you don't have to go all the way back here."

Nick wanted to roll his eyes but he kept himself from doing so. They all loaded into his car and took the short drive over to the department store where Becca was going to be picking up her dress from. It was way above their price range, Nick noticed almost instantly, but he didn't say anything. He didn't want to know.

As Becca went to try on the dress, Nick sat on a plush couch near the dressing room, bored. He pulled out his phone and played a game, waiting quite impatiently for his sister. That was until he heard a voice.

"Nick?"

Nick looked up from his phone to see Caroline standing in front of him, carrying a few dresses into the dressing room. He stood up immediately and grabbed the dresses from her. "Here let me carry these," he told her.

"Um… thanks. What are you doing in the formal dress section?" she asked as she followed him. She didn't really know much about the Fell boy, other than he was good friends with Elena and that his sister was her cheer captain.

"My sister is checking something for her dress," Nick explained as he placed the four dresses in the dressing room for Caroline. He noticed a deep purple one immediately, and thought that Caroline would look very nice in it.

"If I don't see her, tell her I say hi then," Caroline said politely.

Nick shifted his weight nervously, not exactly sure how to ask the question that was burning in his mind. "Who are you going to the Lockwood Party with?"

Caroline smiled awkwardly. "Actually I am going to be Tyler Lockwood's date. He asked me when he brought over my invitation."

Nick couldn't believe his ears. Why would she go with that asshole? There were so many better guys out there. Like him. Not that he asked her, but he didn't really have a choice. Becca hadn't even considered the idea that he might want to ask someone to go with him. He regained his composure in the need to be polite. "I hope you have a good time. I guess I will see you there." Nick felt like an idiot with his response. "Try on the purple, the color will be beautiful on you."

Caroline smiled, not knowing exactly what to make of this guy in front of her. He seemed to be kind to her, but tough and rude to the general population. It was like there were two of him, and Caroline didn't really know what to make of it.

* * *

Caroline walked out of the store with a off the shoulder dark red dress and matching mask. She had seriously considered getting the purple one that Nick had suggested, but thought that it would be too strange to show up in the dress that he wanted for her, considering she was Tyler's date. Plus she knew with Tyler's skin tone that he would look great in the dark red color himself. Stepping towards her car she saw a small brunette woman leaning on her BMW.

"Elena!" she called with a large smile, even though she was rather confused about what the girl was doing waiting for her. As she got closer to the car she noticed something was just off. Her hair was in curls, her clothes tighter and more exposed than Elena would wear. "Katerina?"

Katherine smirked. "It's Katherine now."

Caroline didn't know how to respond. Part of her wanted to hug the woman, the other part to stake her. This was the friend that she had mourned for centuries, the one that she believed killed herself to escape her fate. So Caroline just stood there and waited to see what Katherine wanted from her. She walked over to the car and started to place her things in the truck of the car.

The two girls stood in a standoff, Katherine just staring at Caroline, waiting for Caroline to make a move.

"So aren't you going to try and kill me, _sister_?" she finally asked Caroline.

Caroline shook her head. She wouldn't do such a thing. "No. I never wanted to… Katerina, please believe me."

Katherine gave her a scowl. "If I had a stake right now…"

"It wouldn't kill me. We both know that. Why haven't you said anything, or contacted me? All these years, I thought you were dead," Caroline said sadly.

Katherine just laughed. "You knew what was going to happen to me. You knew that Lukas was going to kill me, so I let you believe I was dead. Lukas knew the truth, I guess he just never told you I was alive."

Caroline closed her eyes. Of course he did. He always liked keeping things from her. Of course he wouldn't tell her that her best friend was actually a vampire. He would have been so angry to hear that his doppleganger had gotten away that he would make sure the girl was killed. That meant not telling her or Elijah about what happened, knowing they would try to protect her.

"No he didn't. And I wanted to stop it, I did, Katerina. You were like a sister to me."

Katherine frowned, angry. "That's the past, Caroline. Now I have seen you protecting the latest doppleganger. I can't let that happen. Step away from her. I will break that curse, and I want you to let me. Vampires deserve to be able to walk in the light and when I do that, I will never have to run from Lukas again. We will be free from him."

Caroline was even more confused as Katherine started to walk away. All she knew was that Katherine was trouble, and that she was going to be the first of many people trying to get their hands on Elena. To break a curse that didn't even actually exist. The woman that she had just met was not the one that she had once called her sister. Katerina the bold, independent but compassionate woman was gone, her heart hardened, and Katherine had taken her place.


	7. Chapter 6: The Masquerade Pt I

**A/N: Now this guys is what I have been dying to get to. I really hope you guys enjoy, please leave a review telling me what you think, I take them all very seriously. Feel free to find me on tumblr under the new url riverssongs. **

* * *

Chapter 6 – Masquerade Part I

Caroline smoothed her dress down one more time before looking in the mirror. She couldn't figure out why she was nervous, it wasn't like she hadn't gone to events like this before. Ever since her run in with Katerina, no Katherine, Caroline had felt like she was on edge. She still didn't know what the woman wanted with her, and dealing with the truth of her existence was a lot for Caroline to take it. It did, however, solidify her knowledge that she was doing the right thing by protecting the doppleganger from Lukas, from breaking the curse. Lukas was uncontrollable as it was, he didn't need to get any more rage from his suppressed could only wish that she had known about Katerina sooner, that they could have spent their eternities as friends. Things had been so lonely without her, and now Caroline realized it was just too late. The woman that replaced her best friend was cold and vindictive, wanting nothing more than to meet her goals. Katerina had been ambitious, but not ruthless.

The doorbell rang, jolting Caroline out of the thoughts of her mind. Checking her curls one last time and placing an extra bobby pin in the back of her head in case of emergency she headed out of the bedroom and to the front door. When she opened the door she smiled as she saw Tyler standing in front of her in his tuxedo. He handed her a mask, beautiful and intricate and matching her dress perfectly. "Thank you, it's beautiful," she said softly. She grabbed the small clutch from the table in the foyer and walked out the door.

"Sorry again for making you come over so early, but my mom was just worried that I would miss some of the guests arrivals. She's been on edge ever since… ever since we lost my dad," Tyler said with a frown, getting into the SVU.

Caroline was surprised that he hadn't opened the car door for her, but she hadn't been on a date with someone 'her age' for a while. It was rather rude to her, but she climbed in anyway. Tyler didn't speak much on the ride over, and whenever he did bother to look over to his date it was only to look at her chest. Before they even made it to the house she knew that this date was going nowhere.

Once they arrived at the house, Caroline was introduced to Tyler's mother and then was forced to stand at the door and greet the guests for the next hour.

Nick drove up to the Lockwood house and parked on the lawn before walking around the car to help his sister out without ruining her dress. He was starting to worry about the plan, but he tried to keep his cool in front of Rebecca. As they walked up the stairs to the large home Nick hit a realization. He wouldn't be able to walk in.

Pausing in front of the door he frantically tried to figure out what he was supposed to do. Biting his lip he just waited, even though Becca was pulling on his arm. "Just a second, okay?" he said to her.

It was that moment of desperation that led Mrs. Lockwood to the door to see who was standing on her porch. "Nick, Rebecca, come in," she said with a smile.

Nick almost sighed, but stopped himself in time. He walked in the door without a problem and then he saw her. Standing in a tight fitting red dress, Caroline was beautiful. Every hair was in place and her makeup made her eyes truly shine. He could see on her face that she wasn't very happy with her job as hostess, and could only wonder if it had anything to do with the company. Tyler looked bored and wasn't even bothering to look at Caroline.

"Why don't you look handsome," Caroline said as Nick approached her. "Becca your dress is incredible! And you have to tell me who you go to for your hair, it's gorgeous."

Becca cracked an actual smile, loving the attention that she was receiving. She quickly changed her focus to looking around the house for Matt, who according to her text messages was already there. Nick was left with Caroline, but only for a moment. "You look… beautiful," he finally told her. She simply smiled and Nick walked away.

He had to walk out the back door of the house, to where the main part of the party was to get back to his car. On his way through the maze of cars parked in front of the Lockwoods house he saw Stefan and flashed him a short salute and waved at Elena. It was going to be a long night that was something that he did know.

Following the direction that Katherine had sent to him earlier that day, he pulled into a bed and breakfast in the town just north of Mystic Falls. He knocked on the door and an old woman answered. "You must be Katherine's date," she said kindly. Nick noticed the bite marks on the woman's neck and the glazed over look in her eyes. Katherine had compelled this poor old woman.

Katherine walked down the stairs in a black dress, her hair straightened to look more like Elena's. Her bright red lipstick, on the other hand was something even Nick knew his friend would never wear, so he hoped not to many people were aware of this either. The mask she held in her hand was black and beaded, and would cover enough of her face to keep questions at bay. The two girls may look identical in features, but their facial expressions were not. Nick just needed to get her in the door and later on upstairs into the study. Those were his tasks for the night, and he could only hope Katherine would behave herself in the time in between.

"You just going to stand there Fell or are you taking me to this party?" she hissed. Nick snapped back into reality and took her arm, leading her to his old car. "You really need to get some better wheels. Vampires don't drive used. I'll take you to the dealership on Monday, compel a nice salesman into giving you a fantastic price."

Nick just smiled and nodded, knowing that Monday would not exist for Katherine if they played their cards right that evening. And he knew that there was no way he was going to be driving a new car without somebody asking questions. His job didn't pay enough for him to be able to afford to keep gas in this car, let alone get something else. As they approached the Lockwood house the party was now in full swing. Nick walked around the car and opened the door for Katherine before escorting her into the house, where Mrs. Lockwood invited them in.

Caroline greeted Katherine as Elena, but could see the devilish look in the woman's eyes. This sparked her interest and made her wonder how Nick was tricked into bringing Katherine into the party. She figured it must be some kind of compulsion, and tried to check for any signs of it on the boy, not noticing anything unusual. As the two walked off into the main part of the party, Caroline couldn't help but notice the way that 'Elena' had watched Tyler.

Caroline walked over to her date, placing a hand on his arm. "I think I'm going to grab a glass of champagne outside your mom's line of sight," she said sweetly.

Tyler nodded. "Okay. She should have us off greeting duty soon and then we can go have some real fun," he said with a smirk.

Caroline smiled back and walked away from Tyler, looking for Katherine. If she was really out to break the curse, then there was only one reason that the woman was there tonight, to get another piece of the puzzle. Remembering the way that her brothers wrote the first curse it included the same things that Lukas would need to break his own curse. She would need: a vampire that would be easy enough for Katherine in this town, a werewolf and a powerful witch. Along with the doppleganger, of course. Katherine could have a vampire, or make one if she really wanted to. A werewolf, now that would be harder to come by. Mason Lockwood had recently vanished, which had the whole town talking. Caroline knew that wolves were virtually instinct these days, Lukas had been tracking packs of them for years, but in the seventeenth century vampires nearly ran them into extinction. Where Katherine was going to find an activated werewolf was a mystery.

Caroline grabbed a flute of champagne and made her way into the back yard, where the dance floor had been put in place. She sipped on her drink as she considered what Katherine was after tonight, a witch or a werewolf. She was about to make the connection when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"May I have this dance?" a voice asked from behind her. She turned to see Stefan Salvatore in a tuxedo. A flash of memories crossed her mind of the nights she would dance with him, her wearing a much shorter dress and him in a suit not too different than the one that he currently wore. Part of her wanted to ask him why he wasn't wearing a white suit, something he always enjoyed in the 20's but knew that it would just confuse him and possibly inform him of her status.

"Why of course," she said with a smile, placing her glass on a nearby table. He led her onto the dance floor before he placed a hand in hers and the other around her waist. It was all too familiar to Caroline, and part of her just wanted to tell him everything, who she was, what she was doing. But that wouldn't protect Elena, it was just her own selfishness. Instead she enjoyed the moment, allowing herself, just for a time to be transported back to a time when she would dance the night away in his arms, before they would run off to find someone to drink.

Stefan was a polite and cordial dancer, as he always was, but his eyes were always somewhere else. He was looking for someone, trying his hardest to spot someone on the dance floor. Finally, he found her, chatting with Jeremy and eating a strawberry. Katherine. Caroline wondered if the man thought it was his own girlfriend, and the music ended. He walked off towards her and Caroline followed behind, wanting to discover exactly what he was after. She stood far enough away not to be noticed but to still be able to hear their conversation without any difficulty.

"Katherine," he said to her darkly.

"Stefan," she said with a smile, biting into a strawberry. "I was just telling dear Jeremy here that I found him very attractive in his suit."

"That's very kind, not exactly your nature, is it?" he asked her.

"But I'm always nice, or don't you remember how nice I can be, Stefan?" she looked at him with her big brown eyes, for a moment making herself look innocent and naïve.

"You lied to me then, you tricked me," he replied.

Katherine shook her head. Jeremy had taken the moment to leave, and left the two alone. Caroline was extremely confused by this entire interaction. In their year together Stefan had never spoken of another woman. Of a Katherine. If he had…. Caroline shook it off. She would have never connected his Katherine back to Katerina, that would have been too far of a jump.

"I never compelled you, Stefan. Your love for me was true, and you will love me again, I know it," she said before wandering off. Stefan was left standing near the tables with an angered look on his face.

Caroline lost sight of Katherine for just a moment, her mind trying to wrap itself around the connection between her former best friend and lover. It was that loss of focus that allowed her to remember the situation at hand. Katherine was up to something, she had made that much clear in the parking lot of the mall. She would have to find her and quickly.

Nick had decided to take a break from dancing with his sister to grab a drink on the large porch behind the Lockwood home. He was sipping on his drink when he noticed Caroline, who was intently watching the conversation between Katherine and Stefan. Looking down at his watch there was still quite a bit of time before he needed to lure her upstairs. Just watching the blonde he could tell that she knew something was wrong, and Nick didn't want the whole thing to be ruined because Caroline noticed something was off.

Finishing his drink and handing it back to one of the staff, Nick headed down the marble stairs to find Caroline. He walked up to her, his hands already clammy from the nerves. He didn't want to blow it tonight, he needed Katherine out of his life, but also he wanted the chance to get to know Caroline. He grabbed her hand and took her out to the dancefloor. A waltz started and he placed a hand around her waist.

Caroline was surprised when she felt herself being dragged away from the direction that Katherine walked off to. She needed to follow Katherine, and yet here she was following Nick onto the dance floor. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked him sharply, obviously unhappy.

"I was just trying to get myself a dance with the most beautiful girl here," Nick replied calmly.

Caroline raised an eyebrow. She was by no means the most beautiful person in the room, she knew that much was true. "Don't let your date hear you saying that," she said back.

"I doubt she'd mind, considering she's over there drooling over my best friend," he told her tilting his head to point at Matt and Becca. Caroline gave a geninuine laugh. It was very obvious that the two were in the early stages of teenaged romance, something that she had experienced all too many times. That was one of the downsides of being an eternal seventeen year old.

"You don't like your baby sister with a good guy like Matt?" she asked him as he spun her around the dance floor expertly. How he knew how to dance so well was a question that she was contemplating asking, but thought it may be taken as rude.

Nick frowned, his brows creasing. It wasn't that Matt wasn't a great guy, he was. It was his sister, at the end of the day. He knew that whatever kind of relationship these two started, it would not end well. Becca was volatile, at best and there was no way that Matt was going to be prepared for her mood swings. Nick didn't want either of them to get hurt, but he knew that was the path that it was going down. "It's not that. It's Becca, really. She's a timebomb. Everyone knows that. And when she blows, Matt is going to be the one that suffers."

Caroline looked over at the couple. She had been at the blunt end of Becca's temper over the course of their cheerleading practices. The girl did have a temper, that was for sure. But maybe someone like Matt would balance her out, give her a chance at being normal. It wasn't Caroline's place to question why or how Rebecca became this way, but over her lifetime she knew that this was a learned behavior. "He'll live. They always do."

The two continued their small talk as Nick swept her across the floor. Nick was continually looking over his shoulder, trying to spot Katherine. They had the common sense to try and keep Elena from the party, but a text message Nick had received showed that it had failed, that Elena was near the river, begging Stefan to stop whatever plan they had. Nick tried to keep himself focused on Caroline, but the thoughts in his mind of the plan were spinning.

Then he heard a crash. It was not in the line of hearing for the humans, but Nick heard a loud noise coming from the house. Caroline did as well. Nick dropped his hands and started walking calmly towards where the noise was coming from, assuming that it would have something to do with Katherine.

Caroline was left on the middle of the dance floor, alone. It was then she heard another crash, this time of broken glass. She started running, past the crowds, through the house and into the study where the noise was coming from. Jeremy was there, a vase in his hand, aimed to throw it at Tyler. Tyler had a gash on his arm, obviously from the glass of the window. It was this moment that the dots were finally connected for Caroline. As she stood in the doorway she knew that Katherine was trying to get herself a werewolf, and she was doing that by creating one.

"Don't make me hurt you, Gilbert," Tyler said through his teeth. His uncle may have disappeared, but he had told Tyler about his true nature and how to avoid it. Tyler's temper had always been an issue but now he had to be even more cautious, to avoid killing someone at all costs.

Jeremy didn't seem to get the message and threw the vase at Tyler's head. It was this moment that Tyler rushed at the younger boy and started to throw his punches. Nick ran into the room and tried to pull Tyler off of Jeremy but the Lockwood boy kept pulling out of his grip and running back to Jeremy. Jeremy was fighting with everything he had, like he was on a suicide mission.

Caroline finally knew that she had to step in, even if it meant blowing her cover. She ran to Jeremy and looked in his eyes. Complusion. "Jeremy, you are going to stop fighting at once, you are going to stand up and walk out of the room, where you will return to the party as if nothing happened."

"Nothing happened," Jeremy repeated.

Caroline felt Tyler lunge at her, escaping Nick's grasp one last time. She quickly turned around and threw Tyler over her shoulder, giving Jeremy time to stand up and leave the room slowly. It was then that Caroline noticed the two girls in the room with them. "Nick, get them out of here!" she yelled as Tyler jumped at her one more time, tearing at her dress.

Caroline fought back, pushing him up against the wall and raising him up by his neck. She would need to compel him as well, and eventually the girls. Tyler used her moment of thought to kick her in the abdomen and launch himself at Nick, pushing one of the girls in his attack. Her head hit the table with a loud thud and she crumpled to the ground.

It was then Nick's turn to lunge at Tyler, pinning him to the ground. The larger man tried to get away, but was unable to do so. "Caroline, help!" he said as Tyler worked at getting away.

Caroline walked over to the boys on the ground, watching as the blonde girl ran out of the study screaming. "Hold him down," she told Nick. He tried his best to do so as she looked into Tyler's eyes. Instead of their normal black they had turned a golden color, with red tints. Werewolf. "You are going to stop fighting us this instant. You will forget our strength and speed. All you will remember is that you and Jeremy were fooling around and she fell into the table. She fell and hit her head."

Caroline stood up and started to straighten out her dress. This surely was not what she was expecting from a date with Tyler Lockwood. No, she was not expecting that her date would kill someone and then become a werewolf.

Nick released Tyler, who then stood up and looked over at the girl's body on the ground. "Oh shit. No. No. No," he ran over to her and checked for signs of life.

"She's dead, Tyler, she's dead," Caroline told him grimly. He looked over at her with his new heightened senses. Something about her was off, and looking at Nick he noticed the boys eyes were starting to darken. They were different, but he couldn't figure out why. Looking down at the body one last time he ran out of the room.

Caroline rubbed her forehead. Katherine had succeeded in making a werewolf. And the closer the girl got to breaking the curse of the sun and the moon the more likely it became that her brothers would be coming soon. To break the real curse and to unlock Lukas's true nature.

Nick just stared at the blood coming from Allison's forehead. He tried to talk himself out of it, to keep himself from feeding on his dead classmate, but the urge, the hunger was starting to take over. Then he looked over and remembered. Caroline had compelled Jeremy. And Tyler. She had speed and strength that was even more than her own.

"You're a vampire."

"And so are you. Put your fangs away, the police will be here soon. Baby vampires, my god," Caroline said in frustration.

* * *

**Next time on Awake My Soul:** The masquerade continues, following Nick as he attempts to lure Katherine into a room with the Salvatores. Also the first look at Elijah, and Nick tries to talk to Caroline about being a vampire.


	8. Chapter 7: The Masquerade Pt II

**AN: Hey guys, this is probably the last chapter that will follow along season 2. The rest of this story will have some of the same reoccurring themes and SLs but it's going to go a really different direction eventually! **

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Masquerade part II

Caroline sat in the study while the police questioned her about the girl's death. She repeated the lie over and over again. They were in the study, partying and she fell down, hitting her head on the desk. When they went over to her she was already dead. It was close to the truth, before the fighting broke out they were partying in the study. Even if Caroline wasn't a part of that portion of events. And the girl, Allison, did fall. Caroline had compelled the other girl to forget, and gave her the same story to tell the cops, giving different details to make it seem more realistic. It wasn't the first time that Caroline had to talk her way out of a murder, and it wouldn't be the last. Her 'aunt' Liz showed up and although she was suspicious that there was vampire activity believed the story that Caroline had told her when it was confirmed by the others in the room.

Finally she was released and went back to the main part of the party. She wanted to look for Tyler, to see if he knew what had just happened, but he was no where to be seen. Searching for him she saw Katherine arm and arm with Nick and was curious to see what they were up to. She felt herself being pulled in two different directions as she finally spot Tyler at the bar, trying to talk the bartender into letting him have a drink that was stronger than the champagne. As Nick and Katherine walked into the house she is forced to make a decision. She goes to Tyler.

Approaching the bar she sits next to him. "Hey," she said quietly.

He turned and stared at her, his eyes burning into her. He was confused by her, he knew that something was not right about her, something that was different. Tyler wondered if she was like Mason, a werewolf as well. There was no other reason that he could think of that she would be able to fight like she did. "Why are you here?" he asked her.

"I am your date, you know," she replied. Caroline should have followed Nick, to make sure the baby vamp wasn't going to get hurt, but she needed to first make sure that Tyler wasn't going to go on some kind of killing spree.

Tyler took a drink of his whiskey that he somehow got the bartender to give him. He slammed the glass down as he finished the drink. Caroline didn't want to know how he was able to order that, or how many more he would be able to consume. "Look, I just killed a girl, if you didn't notice that. That's kinda a big life change for me."

Caroline nodded, knowing that it was probably true. If he was aware of what he was that is. She took a deep breath trying to figure out exactly how to word the question. "Did your uncle prepare you for this?" she asked nicely.

Tyler cocked an eyebrow, wondering how she would know anything about Mason. The pieces were coming into place and he was starting to assume that she must be one too. A wolf. That also meant that she had killed someone. She looked so pure and sweet, and Tyler was wondering how that could have happened to her.

"What? That I'm now something that I thought only existed in nightmares?" he said to her darkly. He picked up his glass and waved it in the air for a refill.

Caroline pulled his arm down and gestured to the bartender that he was not having another. The last thing she wanted to deal with was a drunk werewolf. "Yeah, that."

Frowning Tyler answered her. "Yeah, he mentioned it. Warned me about my temper, and said that it wouldn't be a good idea to murder someone."

"You didn't murder her."

"I don't think the curse cares about that part. She's dead, I caused it, so that makes me a wolf," Tyler was pretty frustrated about the whole thing. He couldn't believe that Jeremy had been so physical, it was like the guy was trying to get himself killed. None of this made any sense, and now a girl was dead because of him.

"Okay, so you are, big deal. Man up and live with it," Caroline told him. She had tried the kind and sweet route and wasn't getting any results so she decided to try her tougher side instead. After living with three brothers most of her existence, she knew that sometimes they just needed someone to tell them to get over it.

Tyler knew there was truth to her words. He also knew that he had a couple weeks before he would turn for the first time, so at least there was some time to adjust and prepare. He was just pissed that Mason had disappeared just when he needed the man the most. "So now what? Tell me what I'm supposed to do."

"I can't answer that, I'm not…. I'm not a werewolf," she said the last part just above a whisper.

"Then what are you?"

"A girl," she lied. "Just a girl that knows too much about your kind."

"What are you?" he said louder, starting to get angry. "I saw you in there, there was no way you were able to hold me down on your own. No human could do that. What the hell are you?"

Caroline shrugged and stood up, smoothing out her dress. "Not a werewolf."

Nick found Katherine on the dance floor, flirting with a boy from the football team. As Elena, of course. He grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her away. "Elena, your brother just got into a huge fight, we should go find him," Nick said as he took her away from the dance floor. He led her into the house, where Katherine thought that he was going to show her Jeremy's dead body. So far the night was going as planned, and she didn't even have to use the witch that she had brought along for protection.

"I'm so sorry to hear about Jeremy, cute kid that one," she said with a devilish smile once they had gotten away from the prying eyes.

Nick wanted to stake her right then and there, but knew that she would be able to overpower him in a second. "Yeah, that was quite the brilliant plan, wasn't it? Get Elena's baby brother to get himself killed so that you can have a new werewolf. What happened to the first one? Mason Lockwood?"

Katherine frowned. She hated being outsmarted. Her whole life as a vampire was about being the quickest and the cleverest. The fact that she lost a werewolf, who also happened to be an idiot was frustrating. She had waited for him after the last full moon, but he had never returned to the bed and breakfast. After searching the woods she found his abandoned truck, but Mason was no where to be found. "He had other things to do," she lied. "Now show me that body."

Nick brought her to the room where the Salvatores waited for her and opened one of the French doors. He shoved her inside quickly before she could realize what had happened. A smile took over his face as he realized that he had succeeded. That tonight Katherine would be taken care of and they would be able to move on with their lives.

Katherine looked at the two brothers standing before her. "Oh boys, it has been much too long. Decided to share me after all?" she said with a wicked grin.

Damon reached for her, pining her up against the wall, a stake prepared to enter her chest. He just wanted all of this to be over. After realizing that he had waited for her and she hadn't cared about him the only thing he wanted was to see her dead.

"Ah ah ah…. I wouldn't do that if I were you," she choked out. Damon dropped her and she rubbed her neck. "Wouldn't want to hurt that little Elena of yours. Or wait, is she yours?" she pointed at Stefan. "Or did you two finally agree to share."

This time it was Stefan's turn to act out. He ran to her and picked her up, throwing her across the room in a swift motion. Stefan then ran to her body on the floor and lunged over her, stake in hand. "And why shouldn't we just kill you?"

Katherine laughed this time. She bucked her hips to rub against Stefan's. "I have a witch too. Much older and more powerful than the one you used to trap me in here. And that witch bonded Elena and I. So whatever you do to me, you also do to her. Here let's test it shall we?"

Katherine grabbed the stake out of Stefan's hand and stabbed it through her hand. With her extra sensitive hearing she could hear the screams of Elena, who was waiting at the edge of the Lockwood Property. "Sounds like it's working. Plus, you need me."

Stefan ran for the door, forgetting that he was also sealed into the room. Hitting the seal hard he yelled for Nick instead. Nick had stayed close, keeping guard to make sure no one tried to get into the room that they were using to imprison the vampires. He heard the yell from Stefan and returned to the room. Nick nodded to tell Stefan that he knew where to go and ran as quickly as he could to the direction of the screams.

In a few moments he was on the edge of the property, where Elena was nursing a bloody mangled hand. She looked up at him confused and dazed, losing blood quickly. Without noticing it Nick's fangs dropped, his eyes focused on the blood. He shook his head and bit into his own wrist placing it on Elena's mouth. She took a drink from him and coughed on it. Her hand started to heal and she was able to breathe normally.

"Katherine bounded the two of you together. We can't kill her without it doing the same to you," Nick explained as his fangs retreated and his focus was brought back. "You need to stay here. I'm just going to tell the guys that you are fine and I'll come right back. We need to get you home."

Elena just shook her head. She didn't want to be taken home, away from the danger. She hated that they always did this to her, assumed that she wasn't able to do anything, to help. It was her life that they were always fighting for. "No. I am staying here until I know Stefan makes it out of there alive."

"I'll ask them what they think, but I know they will agree with me. You are going home," Nick said as he turned back towards the house. He walked away from Elena and headed back up the stairs, aware that someone was following him. When he was about to open the door he turned around to see Caroline right behind him. "Get away from here, Caroline."

"No, I can help. I am a vampire you know," she said to him as she reached for the door. Nick stepped in front of her blocking her way into the room.

"Magically sealed. You go in there and you aren't coming out," he said to her simply.

Caroline pushed him aside and opened the door, looking in to see the Salvatore brothers pining Katherine to the floor. Stefan looked confused, unaware of why Caroline would be around. "It's not what you think," he told her quickly.

Caroline let out a laugh. "Then you aren't trying to kill Katerina?"

Stefan's head jerked up at the question. He had never heard anyone call Katherine that before, but the smile on Katherine's face made him know that it was true.

"Caroline, my dear old friend, you came to rescue me?" Katherine said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Now Stefan, Damon and Nick were confused. They didn't know what the possible link between the two women might be. "Not in the way that you think," Caroline answered.

She then turned to the Salvatore siblings. "Katherine, as you call her is probably your best chance of saving Elena. Other than myself. There are people a lot worse than her coming for the girl, and she," pointing at Katherine, "is the only person to ever escape from them."

Stefan stood up, freeing Katherine from his hold on her. The small woman stretched and rolled her shoulders. "At least one of you has some sense."

* * *

Elijah sat at the large oak desk and tapped his fingernails on the wood. He was sick of waiting for them. Either Rose and Trevor had information or they didn't. If they were going to be worth his time they would need to provide him some real information.

Finally he heard the knock on the door. "Come in," he said firmly.

The two vampires entered, heads down. They were afraid of him, they knew that they could have just walked into a trap. Trevor was the one that finally spoke. "It's true, there is a doppleganger in the town."

"Mystic Falls?" Elijah asked. Rose nodded and Elijah gave a short laugh. It was pretty ironic that the girl would be raised in the town that he grew up in. That they all became vampires in. "Bring her to me."

Trevor looked afraid, knowing that Caroline would not be far. "But… your sister…"

Elijah cocked an eyebrow, but before he could ask what he meant by that Rose continued. "We will. Next week. As long as you promise to keep your end."

Moving onto the next thing, Elijah was distracted. His sister was dead, just like the rest of their family. Lukas staked them all, and hid them from him. "Yes, you bring me the doppleganger and you will never need to fear us again."

Rose nodded and pulled Trevor out of the room. The last thing she wanted Elijah to know was that his sister was alive and protecting the Doppleganger. No it was much better that he didn't know. At least until after they were free. Then the awful family could have their little reunion.

* * *

Caroline woke up in the Salvatore boarding house. After blinking a few times she realized where she was, but not how she got there. Looking down she saw that she was wearing an old black t-shirt, probably Damon's. Then the memories came back to her. Katherine. The curse on Elena. The night had ended with her in a destroyed dress and the Petrova locked inside a tomb in the middle of the woods.

Walking out of the guest bedroom that she had slept in she made her way down to the main part of the old boarding house. She could smell something delicious coming from the back, so she followed the scent. Arriving in the kitchen she found Nick at the counter, flipping pancakes on a griddle.

"You know that we don't have to eat, right?" Caroline asked as she approached the counter, popping a chocolate chip into her mouth.

Nick shrugged. "Yeah, we don't but Elena does. And we can if we want to. So I'm making our favorite, chocolate chip pancakes."

Caroline had to crack a smile. She felt a little… naked wearing just a t-shirt in the kitchen with Nick, someone she barely knew. Blushing a little Nick noticed her discomfort. "Stefan brought some of Elena's clothes over, they're in that bag there," he said pointing to a backpack sitting on one of the stools.

Caroline walked over and grabbed a skirt and shirt that she figured would probably fit. She was a couple inches taller than Elena and probably a few sizes larger, but she thought that the clothes would probably fit. Caroline changed in a nearby bathroom and walked back into the kitchen. "Thanks, this is much better," she said with a smile, twirling in the skirt to show it off.

"I preferred the V-neck myself, but that works too. You want a pancake?" Nick asked as he flipped them onto a plate. He then walked over to a coffee maker and poured two cups of coffee. "Here."

Caroline took the coffee and inhaled the scent. Although they didn't need to drink anything other than blood, Caroline loved to drink coffee. She took a long drink from it, but passed on the pancakes.

They sat in silence for a few moments as Nick finished cooking. He made himself a plate of pancakes and sat down next to Caroline. He started to eat and looked at Caroline, watching her as she drank her coffee. The night before had brought a lot of new information to Nick. "How old are you?" he finally asked curiously.

Caroline put her cup of coffee on the table and looked over at the young vampire. She didn't really want anyone knowing how old she was. So far the only person in Mystic Falls that had any clue of who she was was Katherine, who was thankfully now stuck in a tomb. "Didn't your mother teach you not to ask a woman her age?" Caroline said with a wink, avoiding the question. "You heard Katherine, we were friends when she was human. That's about as much as you're getting from me."

Nick scratched his head. He didn't know all that much about Katherine's history. All he knew was that she was a vampire during the civil war, when she met the Salvatore brothers. "Where were you born?"

"In a small village," Caroline said honestly.

Nick was getting more curious, but could tell that she was unlikely to answer his questions directly. Caroline would keep her distance when it came to speaking about herself. Nick understood that, his family had their fair share of secrets that they didn't tell just anyone. "Why do you think Katherine can help us?"

That was a question that Caroline didn't know how to explain. She knew that the right thing to do would be to say everything she knew, but if she were to let it slip that she was an original, she was asking for people to come to find her. Also the fact that she knew that the curse had nothing to do with the sun and the moon, but instead was about creating the ultimate monster.

"There are people much worse than Katerina trying to break that curse," Caroline started. "And you need the doppleganger to finish it. Katerina was one, and now Elena is the latest one."

"Okay, got that, but why does she have to live?"

Caroline sighed. She couldn't believe how vengeful the young vampire could be. That was something that took her ages to have herself. "Because she's the only person who's ever escaped them."

"Who's them?"

"The originals. The original vampires, the oldest in the world," she told him.

Nick set down his fork and thought about it. He had never really thought about the fact that there would have been a first vampire. Nick had always just assumed that they always existed. "Why should I be afraid of some old vamps?"

"Because they are more powerful than any other vampire. They don't need a trinket to walk in the sun, they are faster and stronger than any other vampire. Rumor has it they can't be killed using a stake either."

"How many are there?"

"Legend has it there were once six. A family of five siblings and a parent. Four sons and a daughter. But three banded together. Those are the ones to fear."

"And what do they want with the curse? If they can already walk in the sun, I mean."

Caroline didn't like the questions, but knew that the group would need to know this if they wanted to protect themselves. "One of them, the leader, he has been trying to break it for centuries. He wants to create a super race."

"And if all vampires could walk in the sun, they would be able to rule the world…"

"Exactly."

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**Coming up in Awake My Soul:** Elena tries to give herself over to the Originals, Elijah learns of Caroline's existence, Katherine makes everyone wonder why they should trust Caroline.


	9. Chapter 8

**AN: I am so sorry for taking so long to update. Actually this chapter was basically completed two weeks ago, but I was moving and getting ready to go overseas for the semester. I will try to be quicker from now on, now that I am safely in Europe for the time being. **

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Nick followed Elena through the woods, the entire time telling her that she shouldn't have tried to go alone. They were on their way to the ruins of the old Fell church, where the tomb that encased the elder doppleganger since the night of the masquerade. Nick had been sitting in the sitting room at the Salvatores sketching aimlessly when he heard Elena trying her best to sneak out of the house early in the morning. He followed her out of the house and made himself known when he saw her entering the woods.

"You didn't have to follow me out here," Elena tried to tell Nick.

Nick shrugged, acting like he didn't care one way or the other which he did. But he wasn't sure if Katherine was someone that they should trust, even if she was now locked in a tomb. He knew that she could lie with the best of them, and she had killed him, so Nick was positive that Elena needed some kind of backup. "Stefan would have staked me if he knew that I let you go out here alone. Well that I let you go at all, but I know that you were going either way, so I had to compromise."

"You could have thrown me over your shoulder and carried me, that's what Damon does."

"I'm not Damon, and I never plan to be. You are more than capable of making your own bad decisions and dealing with the consequences," Nick told her as they came up to the ruins.

Heading down the stairs they could see Katherine lying against the wall. She was starting to turn grey, the need for blood obvious on her face. "Elena, how am I not surprised that you came to visit me… But I have to tell you that I am not taking visitors right now."

Elena threw her backpack around and opened it up, pulling out a water bottle full of blood and a glass. Katherine's eyes perked up and she started to try to stand. "Even if they brought you gifts?" Elena said with a sly smile.

Katherine also broke out a grin. Nick glanced between the two women looking at their matching grins. Both thought that they can outsmart the other. Nick wanted to shake his head, but he was just here to observe, make sure that Elena didn't go out to get herself killed. "What do you want in return for this gift?"

"Just for you to answer some questions. You answer a question, you get a drink," Elena said as she poured a glass of the red liquid and placed it on the ground. "Why do we look alike, what is a doppleganger?"

Katherine pursed her lips, not wanting to answer the question. She knew where this line of questioning would lead and she didn't feel like going into the story. Instead she stared straight ahead not answering.

Elena, prepared for this response grabbed a large leather bound book out of her backpack. It was one of the things that she had seen in the stuff that Alaric and Damon had brought back from Duke. It had been Isobel's, from her research, the binding read PETROVA. Elena flipped through the pages and landed on a sketch. It was Katherine and two adults.

Katherine's arm reached out for the book, but was stopped by the magical barrier that left her locked in the tomb. "Mama…" she said softly. She then looked up at Elena with rage in her eyes. "That's my family. Fine, since it looks like you aren't going to take no for an answer I'll tell you my sob story. That should give you enough background on why we look alike."

"My name is Katerina Petrova. I was born in Bulgaria in the late 1400's. When I was just a little younger than you I became pregnant. I was raped but my father did not believe me. When I gave birth he took the child from me and sent me away, exiling me from the family. Eventually I made it to England and it was there that I attracted the attention of a noble family. They took me in and I fell in love with one of the brothers. What I didn't know was that their interest in me was because of my appearance. I was the second doppleganger, an exact replica of a woman they once knew. And they needed my blood. When I realized what they were and what they wanted from me I ran. I ran as fast as I could. They sent two of their vampire friends after me. I fell in the woods and cut myself pretty badly and one of the vampires, Rose gave me her blood to heal my wounds. They captured me and took me to a cottage for the night, to return me to my captors the next day. It only took a moment when they left me alone to find a way out. I knew that if I died I would become one of them, that my blood would no longer have any value to them. So I died, I hung myself from the rafters. And I have been running ever since."

Elena pushed the cup of blood over to Katherine who drank it hungrily. She was amazed by what she had heard, and Nick was as well. He remembered the story that Caroline had told him the day after the ball. About the family of Original vampires and how they wanted the doppleganger to end the curse of the sun. To create an army.

"And now they want me?" Elena asked.

"For the reason the same reason they wanted me. It was surprising to see Caroline help in your little plan to kill me."

"Actually she's the one that saved your life if you remember correctly," Nick corrected.

Katherine let out a little laugh. "Yes, that's right I should probably thank her for that. Elena, I will only tell you this once. Run. Run for your life if you value it at all. And stay away from Caroline."

Elena shook her head. She wanted it all to be over, she didn't want the people she loved getting hurt any longer. "I won't do that. I will go to them. If they want me, they can have me."

"You're an idiot," Katherine replied.

Nick was only focused on the second part of Katherine's advice. He could piece together that the two women knew each other long ago. Even that Caroline knew her as a human, but where did she fit into Katherine's version of events?

"What about Caroline?" he finally asked.

"Of course you would want to know," Katherine said with a smirk. "I saw the way you looked at her, like she was the most beautiful thing in the world."

Nick didn't respond instead giving her a cold stare. Katherine continued, "She's the world's most beautiful liar. And she's had centuries of practice."

Elena cocked her head to the side, curious. She poured some more of the blood out and handed it to Katherine. "What did she lie about?"

"Not even I am stupid enough to cross her, so I am going to keep my mouth shut on that one. She's not who she says she is, that's all you need to know."

* * *

When they returned to the Salvatore house both of the brothers were pretty upset to see that Elena had wandered off on her own. Stefan was pretty furious that Nick hadn't bothered to text him to tell him where they went off to, but Nick knew that Stefan would not have allowed them to speak with Katherine. The information that she had given Elena was necessary so that they could make a plan of attack on what the next step was to protect her.

Elena walked straight up to where Caroline stood in the kitchen and confronted her. "Where can I find those vampires?"

Caroline looked at her confused. "Which ones?"

"The ones that are trying to find me, to take me to whoever their boss is," Elena explained quickly.

Caroline frowned. This was not a good idea. She thought of Rose and Trevor and their idea of taking Elena to Caroline's brothers to get out of their debt. "Rose and Trevor? I am not leading you to your grave. If you really want to find them, they will find you."

Elena nodded. She thought back to the comment about not trusting Caroline, but it seemed to her that Caroline had been nothing other than a real friend to her. Even though she had only arrived she had quickly become friends with Elena, and fell into their group almost seamlessly.

Elena drove home and checked on Jeremy before she got back in her car and started driving. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew wherever she went that she would be followed. All she would have to do was to wait for nightfall and they would find her, whoever they were. Rose and Trevor, that's what Caroline called them.

She was in the middle of Georgia by nightfall and it wasn't long before she noticed a black car with tinted windows following her. Elena pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the person to walk up to her.

The woman was of average height with short brunette hair. She walked up to the car and Elena rolled down her window. "Are you Rose?" Elena asked.

"That would be me," she replied. Rose was a little baffled by how easy it was becoming to kidnap the doppleganger. She was expecting at least a little bit of struggle. It was still amazing to look at the girl and see the same face, the same brown eyes and calm demeanor. Just like Katerina, but at the same time she could spot the differences too.

"You're here to kidnap me," Elena stated calmly.

"Yes, you are rather calm for a girl about to be taken hostage."

"Because I want you to take me."

Back in Mystic Falls, a new arrival had come into town. He arrived in a black range rover with dark tinted windows, and he was like no one the small town had ever seen before. Walking into the Mystic Grill he was in a full three-piece suit, clean cut and well made.

Elijah walked up to the bar and asked for a whiskey, neat. As the drink was poured for him he took a moment to look around the restaurant, to get a feel of the town. Generally he preferred to stay in larger cities, where it was much easier to remain anonymous. He knew that his presence was too obvious here, he was too different in his designer clothes and well kept appearance.

Sitting down at the bar he started to sip at his drink, listening in on the conversations around him. It didn't take long to hear something worthwhile. The name he was listening for came into the conversation quickly.

Turning to see who was talking about the latest doppleganger he saw a couple of blonde teenaged boys, both who worked for the establishment. They were discussing her odd behavior, with one, obviously a vampire was trying to comfort the human. Saying that it was fine, it was the shock of losing a classmate, the same old lies that any vampire pretending to be human would use.

Elijah waited until the end of the vampire's shift and followed him out of the Grill. Getting into his Range Rover he followed behind the beat up Buick to a house out in the woods. The vampire went inside the large home and Elijah stepped out of the car, which he parked a half a mile into the woods.

Looking into the windows he saw something extremely surprising. A blonde woman was inside the house, sitting near the fire with three men. Her curls and her scrunched forehead was a sight that Elijah hadn't seen in two hundred years. The last he had heard Lukas had staked her too, just another casualty in his quest for power. But there she was, now pacing in the living room, his beautiful younger sister.

* * *

_1792 – Versailles, France_

_Elijah pulled back the curtain of the large window in the sitting room. Outside the masses of French peasants were protesting the wealth and the monarchy. They were loud, and it looked as if it could become violent at any time. Closing the curtain he turned back to his family that were lounging around the room. _

"_I think it may be time to find a new home," he told his brothers and sister in their native language. _

_Lukas shook his head. He loved his life here, living as a close friend of the King's. There was no way that the common people would really have a chance at overthrowing a monarch. It had never happened before, not like this, and Lukas doubted that it ever would. "No, our time here is just beginning, do not worry yourself with these peasants, they will starve soon enough." _

_The last few decades had hardened Lukas, as he waited for another doppleganger to break his eternal curse. The spread of their myth had allowed them to live freely, knowing that the moment the doppleganger appeared, someone would find her. But it meant Lukas was becoming cruel, ruthless. Always full of ambition, now Lukas only wished to control the world. Something that Elijah just couldn't agree with. _

"_Let us go find the King, Lukas, I heard rumors of a hunt for this afternoon," Kol said smoothly, lifting himself up from his chair. Lukas nodded and stood up as well, following him out of the sitting room and towards the King's chambers. _

_Elijah stepped away from the window and took a seat at the couch next to his sister. Caroline sat, fanning herself, obviously deep in thought. _

"_I would hate to leave her," Caroline said quietly in French. _

"_Marie?" _

_Caroline and the Queen had become very close over their last few months at the Palace. She was a sweet girl, the Queen, naïve and sweet, trying her best to be the Queen that France always wanted. Caroline loved sitting around and playing cards with her, walking around the gardens with the children. But she knew that Elijah was right. Things were going from bad to worse, and if they were smart the family would get out while they still could. Fake their deaths and find a new start in another country, another palace. Sometimes Caroline became bored with the noble life, tricking people into living a life of luxury and extravagance but she didn't dare speak out against Lukas. No, they did as he wanted, went where he told them to go. It was just safer that way. _

"_Yes. I know you are right, brother, but how do we convince Lukas?" she asked waving the fan in front of her face. _

"_I think it's time to leave him. I have thought about this for a few years now, and it's time. He has lost control, Caroline. And he has Kol now, he would not be alone." _

_Caroline frowned. She had to say being reunited with her youngest brother was one of the highlights of the last few years but in the end she knew better. Kol would leave again when the mood struck. Kol was always the flaky one, the one that did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He had no reason to stay with them. He hadn't before, who said he would now? "No. You promised. We all promised. To spend eternity together, the three of us. You can't do that to us." _

"_I am asking you to come with me, Caroline." _

"_I can not do that to him. Lukas needs his family, Elijah, without us there is nothing to stop him." Caroline stood up and straightened out her light blue dress, adjusting the hoop skirt underneath. That was another thing she hated about being in nobility, the clothes were restraining. She would much rather wear something like her handmaids did, light and durable. _

_Elijah knew that she had made her decision. There was truth to what she had to say, but he couldn't live this way any longer. It was against his moral code to continue to oppress the people of the lower classes. Elijah was done following Lukas blindly, going against his moral code. He knew the possible consequences of his leaving, he knew what his brother was capable of but he was willing to take that chance. For his own sanity. "I am leaving tonight, at midnight. You are welcome to come with me." _

"_Goodbye, Elijah." _

* * *

Caroline was breezing through her history homework, as she usually did. Writing about the overthrow of the French monarchy was pretty easy when you were there standing next to the Queen when it happened. She wanted to write that Robspierre was a jerk and how the majority of his writing would be equivalent in accuracy to an issue of US Weekly, but instead she inserted the version of events the history books wanted her to hear. Placing the history text on the table beside her she took a moment to remember her friend Marie, of her beautiful children.

Nick burst into the house and ran up to Caroline. "Where are the Salvatores?" he asked frantically.

Caroline shrugged. She had been spending more time in the boarding house than at the sheriff's especially after the events of the Masquerade ball. Knowing that there were more vampires in this town, and always the threat for more, Caroline didn't want to tip off Liz Forbes any more than she needed to.

Stefan came down the stairs, a concerned look on his face. "Yes, Nick?"

"Have you heard from Elena?"

"No. I was about to ask you the same thing. She wasn't at school, was she?"

"She's gone. No one has seen her since last night. That's why I came over here."

Caroline knew that they were in trouble. Thinking back to her last conversation with Elena she knew exactly what the young doppleganger was up to. She was going head on into trouble. Getting up from her chair she started to pace back and forth across the room. She didn't want to admit to her mistake, of telling Elena and basically allowing the girl to get herself kidnapped. In the back of her head though, she knew what the right thing to do was.

"This is my fault," she said softly. The boys perked their attention and turned to watch her as she crossed the room again. "I told her about the vampires that are after her. Rose and Trevor. She must have gone to them…"

"She wanted to protect us. Elena has always had a little bit of a problem when it came to putting other people before herself. She threw herself to the wolves, or in this case the vampires thinking we'd be better off." Nick explained this aspect of Elena's personality to Caroline, who hadn't been exposed to it before.

Caroline wanted to curse herself and her stupidity. She had never considered the fact that Elena might go straight into the battle, allow herself to be taken to Caroline's family. Stefan walked over and poured himself a drink from the stand in the corner. Pounding the drink down his throat he turned to face Caroline. "Do you know where to find these vampires?"

"No, but I have a good idea of where they could be."

"Get in the car, Blondie, we have a doppleganger to rescue," Damon told her as he started to put on one of his famous leather jackets.

* * *

Elijah watched as the vampires left the boarding house and got into a large SUV. There were four of them, the two brothers and another male, along with his sister. He was following their vehicle when he got the text from Rose, saying that they requested a meeting, and that it was about the doppleganger. It was then that he put the pieces together. The four vampires were after the girl, the one that Rose was calling him about. The only thing that Elijah had to wonder was where was Lukas? And what kind of plan was Caroline up to? The sister he knew was loyal to her family to the core, and would do anything for Lukas. Was she just a spy? Waiting for the right moment to take the girl and bring her to her older brother? Elijah had to make sure that didn't happen. Even if that meant killing the girl himself.

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**Next on Awake My Soul**: Stefan starts to uncover Caroline's past and Elena finds herself doubting what she knows about the mysterious new girl. Elijah and Caroline come face to face for the first time in 200 years.


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N: Okay I am finally settled in my new city in this new country, so hopefully things will start to move quicker. I thank all of you for your lovely reviews, please keep them coming I like to know what you all think and I do take it into consideration. Actually this chapter is an example of that because someone wanted to know why I characterized Becca slightly different than Rebekah (making her more perfectionist) so I gave you a peek at that storyline in this chapter! **

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"We are dropping you off at your house on the way, Nick," Stefan said as the group got into the car. He ran a hand through his hair while he pulled out his cell phone from his pocket, checking once more to see if his girlfriend had contacted him. There was one thing that about Elena that drove him crazy, and it was her need to martyr herself for the safety of others. He had been alive over a hundred years, lived a lifetime, nearly two. Elena had everything still going for her. And here she was throwing it away for his sake.

Nick shook his head. "I am coming with you," he said firmly.

"No, you're not. You are a young vampire, and this is originals that we are dealing with. Even if they aren't there, the vampires are still much older than the Salvatores, you wouldn't stand a chance," Caroline told him. She was going through her purse trying to find her own phone with the address to where she had met Rose before.

"Are they older than you?" Nick asked, the words of Katherine still burning in his ears. Who was Caroline anyway? Where was she from? How old was she? These were all questions he hadn't bothered to ask.

Caroline shook her head. There were some questions that were better not answered directly, such as her age. "You never ask a lady her age, Niklaus," she said, using his full name.

Baffled and a bit embarrassed Nick tried to recover. "That's not what I meant, I just meant… it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I am new, I am still a vampire. If Stefan and Damon are going to go and they are not as strong as the opposition, why can't I?"

"Because you aren't in love with her," Caroline whispered to Nick in the backseat. She could see the way that Damon looked after her, how emotional he got whenever the topic was Elena. She was wiser than she looked, but she could also see that Stefan was denying it, pretending that he didn't know his brother's feelings. A different Stefan than the one she had known. The one who would take anything that was his and made sure that everyone knew it.

The car pulled into Nick's driveway where his buick was sitting in the driveway behind his father's truck. A light was on in Rebecca's room and Nick could only cringe when he realized that he missed dinner. Father wouldn't be pleased with him about that. Nick got out of the car and waved goodbye to the group as the SVU pulled out and started towards the highway.

As the car pulled away, Stefan turned to look into the backseat where Caroline was sitting. "Are you older than these two, Rose and Trevor?" he asked seriously.

Caroline nodded. She didn't know the exact lineage of the vampires, but she knew that she had to be older than them. "At least I think so. They were quite young at the time that Katherine was turned to be so easily used by the Originals."

Pulling the map up on her phone she handed it to Damon in the driver's seat. Her past was something that needed to remain a secret, at least for now. "Where did you stay before you came to Mystic Falls?" she asked, trying to get him to speak.

"A place in Minnesota, a college town. Got a degree in English Literature, again," Stefan replied. "And you? What were you doing before you got here?"

Caroline thought over what she should say. Generally she did the same kind of work, or lack thereof in every city she went to. Including Chicago, where she had met Stefan before. "Party Planner in Los Angeles. Nothing really that exciting, but I enjoy it."

"Have you done that before? Been a party planner?"

Caroline bit her lip before answering honestly. "For the last hundred years or so now. I move from city to city and get myself involved in the socialite scene, either as a orphaned socialite or as a planner or club promoter."

Stefan raised an eyebrow. "I generally don't really live in cities, except Chicago. I have gone there a couple times. Have you ever lived there Caroline?"

"Yes, I did once, in the 20's. It was too cold though, I prefer Los Angeles myself." Caroline gave a fake smile, one that she had mastered over the long centuries. The best liars are the ones that tell as much truth as possible, this was something that she had learned. Only if he asked her directly if they knew each other would she lie.

A spark of recognition hit Stefan, a glimpse into another life. Looking at Caroline's face he saw a speak-easy, and a girl standing in front of a microphone, swaying to the jazz music. The red curtains behind her making the white of her beaded dress even more vibrant. Then it was gone. Shaking his head he looked back at Caroline. "I was there about that time too, but I am sure we never ran in the same circles. I was involved in the bootlegging business back then, far from the high class socialites."

"You'd be surprised about where the socialites were back then," she said with a smile. Caroline turned and looked out the window, trying to avoid the conversation. When she looked at him now, all she saw was the strong man that she once knew, and the life that they had together. Caroline risked everything to be with him, and he remembered nothing. A pang hit her heart as she remembered the way it felt to sway in his arms, drift to the music until the sun came up.

* * *

Elena sat in the chair that she was currently handcuffed to, in a dusty old house that was falling apart. It had once been a grand plantation house, but at some point or another it had drifted away. The hard wood floors and the neo-roman columns still stood, along with some of the old furniture. She could hear her captors upstairs, and waited until she heard some footsteps coming towards her. Craning her neck she saw Trevor leave out the front door without a word and Rose come towards her.

"Do I really need to be cuffed? I don't think I'm going anywhere, considering I came willingly," she asked Rose as the vampire sat on the dusty sofa.

"We have to take certain precautions after what happened the last time we had a doppelganger in our possession."

Elena nodded, remembering the tale that Katherine had told her and Nick in the tomb. She was something precious to these people, she meant the end of a curse that trapped them to the night. Maybe her death is a noble one, but Elena was still only a teenager. And she was afraid.

"We have word that our man will be here late this evening, then you will go off with him," Rose informed her. "I can't promise you that they will treat you well, actually probably the opposite. So I am having Trevor get you something to eat, you must be hungry."

Elena nodded, sitting in the room all day and dozing in and out didn't give her much to think about. Other than the fact that she was hungry and wondering if she had made some sort of mistake. She checked for her cellphone multiple times but knew that Rose would have taken it from her. If she wanted to get out of this alive, Stefan and Damon would have to find her on their own.

"Thinking about your knights in shining armor?" Rose asked.

Elena looked up at the woman. She didn't answer but she knew that her face probably gave her away. "Does anyone know that you came to find me?"

"Caroline. Caroline knows."

"Caroline?" Rose's eyebrows raised. "Who's Caroline?"

"A vampire that moved into town recently, she's somehow related to the sheriff," Elena replied.

Rose connected the dots and realized that she and Trevor might be in more trouble than she thought. If Caroline knew that Elena was there, she could get to them before their man arrived. It could mean that they would remain on the run, never able to make amends with Lukas. "Is that what she told you? Do you know how old she is?"

Elena shook her head. "She knew Katherine when Katherine was human, so at least five hundred."

"Oh, Elena, you are in over your head. You have no idea who she is do you? What she's capable of? Caroline is not just a normal vampire. Have you seen how she walks in the sun?"

"So she had a witch make her something, like Stefan's ring. That doesn't mean anything," Elena told her firmly.

Rose shook her head. "You don't know her. She's cruel, one of the worst vampires to associate yourself with. Especially you, being the doppelganger."

"That's not true. She's been nothing but nice and helpful to me. How do you know her anyway? Maybe you have a different Caroline."

"You better hope I do, because the Caroline I am thinking of probably wants you dead."

Elena remembered the things that Katherine had said, about Caroline not being everything that she said she was. Add this to that and Elena had to wonder if maybe they were right, that Caroline was really not a friend but something quite the opposite.

* * *

When Nick walked in the door of his house he could hear yelling coming from the basement. His father was demanding a beer and he was just shouting about it up the stairs. Sighing, Nick put his keys down on the table and reached into the fridge, grabbing a beer. He walked down the stairs to see his father reclining in his chair, watching some stupid reality television show.

"Here's your damn beer," Nick said as he slammed the beer down on the coffee table.

Thomas Fell looked up at his son. "What was that you just said? Treat your father with respect boy."

"When you start acting like a father, maybe I'll consider it," Nick said as he turned around and headed towards the stairs.

"First your sister, now this. I should throw your ass out for speaking to me like that," Thomas muttered as Nick made his way up the stairs.

Nick walked up to his sister's room and knocked on the door softly. "Can I come in? Dad said something about fighting with you today, is that true?" Nick pushed the door open slowly and saw his sister sitting on the floor in front of the mirror.

Her right eye was black and blue, and there were hand marks on her upper arms from where he had grabbed her but that's all Nick could see from the tank and shorts that she was wearing. "Generally he's smart enough not to hit my face, I don't know how I am going to cover this up for school tomorrow…" she said as she applied foundation to her face.

"What happened? What set him off?"

Sighing she turned around and faced her brother. Nick sat down on her bed as she started to recount the evening. "After cheer practice I came home and made dinner, and over dinner Dad asked about Chemistry class. I couldn't lie well enough and he found out about the C I got last week on my lab report. He went off about college and how I was worthless…" Rebecca started to tear up, but sniffed and made sure no tears fell. "After dinner I came up here to do homework and he did this."

"I could kill him, I really could. Beck, you are anything but worthless, really. You are my sister and I would do anything to protect you," Nick said, clenching his fists. Now that he was a vampire he felt anger in a way that he hadn't before. Whereas before he would have never wanted to take his father on, now he had the courage, knowing that he could overpower the man.

"What the hell has gotten into you lately? It's okay really, nothing to get yourself in trouble over. You're eighteen soon, just be glad that you get a chance to get out of this fucking house," Rebecca said as she turned to face the mirror again.

Nick sat there just a moment watching his sister as she found a way to make her bruise disappear. Rebecca didn't really have friends, she found other girls to just be rivals more than anything else. She didn't let other people close to her, her walls were up so high to hide her secrets. Watching her as she fixed her hair and her face, plastering on her fake smile he saw one of the strongest girls that he had ever met. If only she let others know who she was. Nick would never grow older, there would come a day that he will have to leave her, leave her to face their father. That was the problem of never growing older, the people around him would. Rebecca will notice in a couple years that he doesn't look a day over seventeen, and one day she will grow up and get married and have a family, and Nick won't see that. So he would have to prepare her the best way he can, create a future for her when he can't have his own. He would have to do something about their father, some way to insure that Rebecca will be safe after he is gone.

* * *

Half way through the journey Bonnie texted Damon with a more exact address of where Elena would be. The witch had tracked Elena using some of her hair and it brought the boys and Caroline to an abandoned house just across the border. As they pulled up, Caroline could see that lights were on inside, and there was a car parked out front.

Damon turned off the ignition and got out of the car, Stefan and Caroline following close behind. "Can you hear how many people are there?" Stefan asked his brother.

"Three. Two vampires and Elena from the sound of it," he said as he walked towards the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled the door off its hinge, throwing it to the yard.

Rose gasped and ran to the door, Trevor close behind. Trevor quickly stepped in front of Rose and looked over the three vampires. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"We came to rescue Elena, again." Damon said with a sigh.

Trevor shook his head. "You are not taking her anywhere. She came with us willingly."

Caroline walked into the other room where Elena was strapped to the chair. "So willingly means you had to chain her to the chair? That's doesn't look willing to me."

"Caroline," Elena said, looking at the blonde with desperate eyes. She didn't want to die, but she didn't want everyone else to suffer either. "I did go and find them, but they are going to be passing me off to someone else."

"Who? Who are you taking her to?" Caroline asked.

"I don't know, he didn't tell us his name. But he is going to bring her to Lukas, tell him what we did."

"You are handing off the doppelganger to a random stranger on the hopes that he will tell Lukas what you did? You must be stupid."

Stefan shook his head, worried about Elena. "We will be taking her now."

"You aren't taking the girl anywhere, not now," a voice said from behind them. On the front porch was a man in a tailored suit. He looked to be about thirty, clean shaven with piercing eyes. "She's coming with me."

Caroline ripped the manacles off of Elena, and started to look over her, making sure that she wasn't harmed. They could no longer hear what was going on in the hall, only that there were many people talking. "Are you hurt?"

Elena shook her head. "How did you find me?"

"Bonnie traced you with a spell, brought us straight here. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, let's just get out of here."

In the hall Trevor walked up to the man in the suit. "I had no idea it would be you that would come to pick up the girl, Elijah," he said with a small bow. "I hope you can see this as an end to our quarrel, and we can move past what happened so long ago."

"It is nearly paid off, but don't think that we will ever forget what you had done," Elijah moved like a bolt and sunk his hand into Trevor's chest, pulling the heart out of the body. "Give me the girl," he said holding the heart in his hand.

Rose screamed and ran over to the fallen Trevor. Damon and Stefan launched their attack, running at Elijah and starting to fight him. Caroline could hear what was going on, but she didn't hear the name of the man that came to get Elena. "We need to stay here, then when it's clear in the hall I will get you to the car."

The fighting continued, the men moving like flashes of light in the main hall, up and down the stairs. Stefan was thrown from the top story as Damon tackled Elijah to the ground, grabbing a stair railing to use as a stake.

Caroline could tell things weren't going well so she commanded Elena to stay where she was and walked out of the hall. She felt her fangs drop as she prepared for the fight against this mystery man. When she opened the doors she couldn't see a thing, the men were moving so quickly. Finally she saw her opening and rammed the man against the door. Holding him by his neck she lifted him off the ground to take a good look at him.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped. He was the first to speak. "Caroline? My dear…" it was that moment that Damon rammed a stake through her brother's heart. It was Caroline's turn to scream, but she also knew that this wasn't the time. Elijah wasn't dead after all, but they would only have moments before he healed enough to get away.

"Let's get her out of here," she said, pretending that she hadn't noticed anything unusual.

"Who is he? This Elijah?" Damon asked as Stefan carried Elena to the car.

"Somebody I used to know, and an original." Caroline answered with the truth. The man that she knew ran away from her, away from the family that he was so committed to be loyal. The Elijah she knew was dead, whoever this was, he was a stranger.

"What does he want?"

"Nothing good, I'm sure."

The car pulled away from the plantation house, and Caroline watched from the passenger side window as it became smaller and smaller. Her brother was alive, she had assumed, like Katerina that he was dead, but there he was. Part of her was relieved, but the other part needed to know what he wanted with Elena. What was his part in trying to kill the doppelganger, what did he have to gain… And where was Lukas?

As they drove towards Mystic Falls, mostly in silence Caroline stared out the window, trying to remember the last time she had seen her brother. After the revolution Lukas, Kol and herself had fled to Austria, where the empire was on the rise. After that she didn't see him again, not until they came to America in the nineteenth century. It was in Brooklyn, near a slum when she saw a business man that looked like him. She had only gotten a glance at him then, but he nodded to her, recognizing her before she hurried off. It had been nearly two hundred years, and yet she remembered his face as though it was engraved in her mind. She never expected that he would be alive, not after she learned that Lukas had staked their other brothers and especially after he came for her in the 1920's.

Although she would never admit it, Elijah was always her favorite brother. And she had always thought that the feeling was mutual, but if it was why hadn't he contacted her? Why hadn't he made any effort to find her or talk to her in so long? Maybe she mattered less to him than she thought… As the highway rolled her to her new home in Mystic Falls, Caroline wondered if family wasn't something that lasted forever. Maybe it was only supposed to last one lifetime, and hers was long over.

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**Thanks for reading, send a review my way! **

**Up Next:** Nick tries to deal with his heightened emotions, Elijah contacts his sister, and Bonnie discovers the truth about Caroline.


	11. Chapter 10

**A/N: Yay I am finally updating rather quickly! I am successfully in the United Kingdom, and I want to thank my lovely readers who cared enough about me to wish me well. I dedicate this chapter (with a huge Klaroline scene) to you all! Please be patient, the climax of the Klaroline is coming sooner than you think! **

* * *

Nick was finding it harder and harder to maintain control over his emotions. Especially when it came to his anger. Things that would have just bothered him before were now means for major meltdowns and he found himself spending too much time worried about not harming the people around him. It wasn't like there was anyone that he could talk to about it, his sister didn't know that he was a vampire, and the Salvatores always had some kind of Elena-centered crisis to focus on.

It had been three days since the Salvatores and Caroline had saved Elena from the old plantation house. Since then, Caroline had been keeping to herself, trying to stay away from the people around her. Something happened to her while they were there, but Damon and Stefan were too worried about Elena to give her any of their attention. It was only Nick who seemed to notice the way she stared blankly at the wall in class or how she would just drift out of conversation. But he had been too consumed in all the drama, and too worried about what Katherine had said in the tomb to do anything about it himself. He had to spend most of his waking moments worrying about how he was going to keep himself from killing his own parents while they slept.

This wasn't a new thought for Nick. Since he was a child and he first realized that mothers were not supposed to be hit by fathers he had wanted to fight, to stand up for his mother. Things had gotten worse since they moved to the United States, to the town where his father had grown up to live in the small farmhouse that the Fell's had claimed for centuries. It was that move, when he was barely six years old that marked his notice of the way his family acted differently. Moving to the smaller house, away from the English countryside he had played in made him see things he missed before. Like how his mother had purple arms, and that Father yelled more when he had too much of his evening drink. That other kids in his class didn't have fathers that yelled or hit their mothers.

Growing up all he wanted to do was to be able to fight for his mother, to push his father away and make sure that he never hit her again. This emotion turned to frustration as he grew older and realized that his mother was too afraid to leave, to afraid to tell anyone of what was happening to her. It finally boiled into anger and hatred when his sister was starting to get hit as well. It was one thing to hit him, but he would do anything to protect Becca from harm. In his dreams he strangled his father, or took Rebecca and ran away. But they were just dreams… until now. Now he had the means of stopping his father for good, of protecting his sister from harm, and he was scared of what he could become.

It was this thought, the thought of becoming a murderer that finally gave Nick the courage to call Caroline. She might not be who she said she was, but she had been a vampire longer than anyone in Mystic Falls and might be able to help him.

She was surprised to see a text on her phone from Nick, but agreed to meet him out in the woods by the old site of the Salvatore plantation. She knew of the place because she had gone out here with Stefan to catch some animals for blood, not that it was her preferred diet, but she could understand why Stefan felt the need.

When she arrived he was sitting on the remains of a stump, a tree that had been cut down long ago. "Hey," she said quietly. She still didn't know what to think of the somewhat rebellious boy that Elena trusted so much. She had done her research on him since she arrived, and Nick was notorious for school brawls and mouthing off to teachers.

"Hello Caroline," he said formally, standing up.

"What's with the meeting in the middle of the woods thing? You aren't planning to slaughter me and hide my remains or something, right? Because we both know I'd win in a fight."

"We'll have to test that out sometime," he said with a flirtatious smirk. He knew that Caroline had been spending a lot of time with Tyler since the party at his house, but he knew nothing was ever out of reach. "No, that's not why. I just wanted someplace more private to talk about a sensitive matter."

"Then spill, what's going on?"

Nick thought for a moment about the best way to word what he wanted to say. "Since I turned, I have found myself… more emotional than I was before. It's like everything…"

"Is heightened. Yeah, I know what you are talking about," Caroline finished. "I haven't been a human in a long time, so I might not be the expert on this but overall vampires experience emotions strongly. More so than they did as humans. It will fade over time, or if you'd like you can turn your emotions off completely. I wouldn't suggest that though."

"Shut them off?"

"It's like flipping a switch, turning off the things that make you human and giving in completely to the vampire," Caroline explained.

"Why would anyone want to do that? That sounds like a killing spree waiting to happen."

"Exactly, but sometimes reality is just easier to face without any emotion. You will watch your family grow old and die, you will experience heartbreak, mourning, even anger amplified. Some people just decide that's not worth it. They would rather just let it go," Caroline was surprised that no one had told him about these parts of being a vampire. "What emotion are you having problems with?"

"Anger. Hatred," he told her, taking a pause between the words to emphasize them. Closing his eyes he pictured his father again, and clenched his fists.

Looking at the young vampire she saw a snapshot of Lukas, as if it was the same man. To have hatred this deep, there was something extremely bad going on. "And you are worried you are going to kill them? Am I right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you're not. Okay?" Caroline debated whether or not she should compel him into not killing whoever it was, but she went against it. There would be many times in his life as a vampire he would come to this decision, he would have to be able to learn to stop himself.

"Okay. How though?" he asked her.

"Who is it?"

"I can't tell you that," he snapped. It was the easiest defense for an abused child, the correct answer. You don't say anything, to anyone, that was the first rule of staying alive. But he didn't have to worry about staying alive any longer. "Sorry, habit. My father. I want to kill my father."

Caroline nodded. Her relationship with her own father was tense, at best. In reality her father had been trying to kill her for about a thousand years, but tense was a nice way of putting it. As a child of a violent parent, she could see the signs in the way that he defended himself, in the way he worded the responses. "Who did he hurt, Nick? I know he can't really harm you anymore, so who did he hurt?"

Nick shook his head and turned around. He wasn't going to tell her this, he wasn't going to let anyone else know how screwed up his family was. It was hard enough when Elena realized it a few years ago, the constant nagging to tell someone. He wouldn't allow Caroline to do the same thing, not now. Things were different now, he could battle his father if it came to that.

"Rebecca." Caroline said it softly as the realization hit her. From the small amount she knew about Nick, he didn't care for a lot of people. The only people he really let close to him were Matt and Elena. And his sister, he was fiercely protective of his sister. It would make sense that he would try and protect her from the world when their father treated her so horribly. "It's Rebecca, isn't it?"

Nick refused to answer; instead he kicked the dead leaves on the ground. His thoughts were racing, all he could think about was kicking his father's head in. Doing something to make sure that Rebecca never got hurt again.

Caroline watched him as he walked in circles, paying close attention to his movements. He was extremely angry, and from what she could tell, his temper was something he struggled with even before being a vampire. Not that she could really blame him for acting out in such a way. Watching him she knew that something had to be done for Nick and Rebecca, and soon. If things continued like this Caroline knew that it would end up with murder, and then Nick would be forced to run from Mystic Falls and never look back. She would have to do something before he did something he couldn't take back. "Stay with Rebecca as much as possible, or have Matt with her. That should keep your father from harming her in the short term. Give me some time to think of something," Caroline finally said.

Nick looked up from the ground and at Caroline. "What can you do? There's nothing you can do that will protect her. Other than call social services, and get her taken away, get me taken away from Mystic Falls. Do you want that? No. Just tell me how not to kill my dad, that's all I want from you. We don't need your help."

"Be with Rebecca, that's how you won't kill him. She ties you to your humanity, she keeps you from acting out your vampire side. Stay with her. And don't ask for my help if you don't actually want it. You're just wasting my time. Anything else before I go?"

"Who are you really? Katherine said we shouldn't trust you, that there was more to you that we didn't know. What did she mean?"

"For Elena's safety and for my own, I can't answer that," Caroline said as she turned and started to walk away.

When Caroline reached the Forbes house she wasn't all that surprised to see a black SUV parked outside. The driver's side door opened and her brother stepped out, in a new suit and a healthy demeanor. Of course that stake didn't kill him, she knew it wouldn't, but she had thought it would take him a bit longer to revive himself. "Elijah."

"Caroline, may I have a word?" he asked her politely.

"Not here. Let's walk," she told him as she started to walk away from Liz's home. She needed the security that privacy allowed to keep her secrets. Talking to Elijah in a public sphere would only raise questions that she wasn't ready to answer.

Once they were out of the town limits she turned to her brother. He stopped and placed a hand on her wrist affectionately. Even though he was rather suspicious of her motives, he had to touch her to know that she was there in front of him. Alive.

"Caroline, where is he? Where is Lukas?" Elijah asked seriously.

Caroline shook her head. "I don't know. I do not know where he is, but I know he will be here soon enough."

"You aren't with him anymore?" Elijah asked stunned. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have…"

"I didn't know you were even alive, Elijah! I thought you were staked like Finn and Kol. How was I supposed to know that you had somehow escaped him?"

Elijah took in the new information. He had just assumed that Caroline was still at Lukas's beck and call, his loyal companion for their eternities. The fact that she would have left was something that he had never considered. Caroline was loyal, Lukas passionate, Kol determined, Finn was intelligent and Elijah moral. They all had their strengths, and Caroline's had always been committed to the family. To keeping it whole. "He never came after me, when I left. Guess he didn't see me as much of a threat. What about you, what happened that finally made you leave?"

Tears started to form in Caroline's eyes. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around her brother, that they would finally have a chance at being reunited after so long. But they had larger problems to face first. Life wouldn't be easy until Lukas was no longer out to break the curse. "I fell in love, Elijah," she said quietly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she continued. "Chicago, the 1920's. We were bootleggers, basically fueling the whole city. There was a vampire, Stefan, who was cruel and beautiful. I fell in love with him, and when Lukas wanted me to leave him, I couldn't. So I ran away with Stefan, only to find that Luke had gotten to him first. He compelled Stefan to forget about me, to forget about what happened with us. I ran away, heartbroken and alone. And I have been running ever since."

Elijah knew she was telling the truth, there was no way that she would have left otherwise. Falling in love was a sign of weakness in Lukas's book, something to be avoided at all costs. But Caroline was different. For as ambitious as she may have been through their long lives, she always left her heart open for a man strong enough to take it. Not too many of them fit the bill though.

"Why are you here in Mystic Falls then? If you are running from him you should really be far away from here."

"I have to protect her. Elena. For Katerina. I never forgave myself for letting her die, Elijah, and in her memory I decided that if I had the chance I would save the doppelganger," Caroline told him. "And you? I am guessing you want her dead before Lukas can find her and use her?"

"That was the plan, yes. If she died and was buried before Lukas could find her than he would never get the chance to break his curse. Plus the girl has no children, so he might not ever get the chance again."

"I won't let you do that. I won't let you kill her. You killed my best friend, Elijah, you and Lukas in hopes of breaking some ancient spell. You turned her into a monster," Caroline was starting to get defensive.

"So I see you found out about what happened to Katerina… I'm guess Lukas wasn't the one that told you she turned into a vampire and ran." Elijah paused but Caroline didn't say a word so he continued. "Yes, I have been tracking her for the centuries. She was actually the reason I found Elena in the first place. Katerina led me straight to her doppelganger."

"I came here to protect Elena, to let her live a normal life. I am not going to let you or Lukas ruin her life."

"It's her or Lukas. What's it they say in those nasty witch books? Neither can live while the other survives or something? Well that's true here. As long as she is alive he will come for her."

"I choose her. She didn't ask for this, she's just a girl."

"You are willing to kill your own brother to save a little girl?" Elijah asked, shocked.

"If that's what it takes, then yes," Caroline told him. "Are you willing to finish all this once and for all?"

"Yes, I think I am."

Bonnie was out in the woods, looking for an herb to use for one of the spells that she wanted to practice. Now that there were other witches in Mystic Falls, she was able to find others that motivated her to practice more frequently and develop her skills. It was searching for the root that she saw Caroline speaking with an unfamiliar man. Finding the root she headed straight to the boardinghouse and asked Stefan about what she saw, to hear that the man described sounded a lot like the one that they had killed.

It was this revelation that allowed her to connect the dots. A vampire that lived through a staking, the fact that Caroline didn't wear a talisman to walk in the sun. Bonnie started searching through the books the boys had gotten at Duke when she found the descriptions of the original vampires, the ones that were present at the time the curse of the sun and the moon was placed.

_Among the vampires stood four brothers, strong as steel. Three had dark eyes and dark hair, the eldest two and the youngest. The other had a fair complexion and was taller than his brothers, staggering over them by some height. With them stood a young woman, pale with golden curls. The only daughter of this mighty family. After the spell was bound all their descendants would never walk in the light again, but be banished to the darkness. _

Caroline. Caroline was the young woman from a family of brothers, she had mentioned it once in passing. Bonnie grabbed the tome and got back in her car, speeding off to meet Caroline.

When she arrived she was let into the house by the sheriff and walked into Caroline's room.

"Bonnie!" Caroline said as she threw her arms around the girl in a friendly embrace. Bonnie pushed her away and stared straight at her, thrusting the old book into her hands, the page opened. "What is this about?" Caroline looked down and read the passage, but she knew better than to react physically. She would have to do everything she could to convince the witch that the revelation wasn't true.

"Katherine told Elena not to trust you, that you weren't who you said you were. You never really did tell us who you were though. So it wasn't all a lie," Bonnie said darkly. "Caroline… Is this you?"

Caroline bit her lip as she considered the possibilities. Bonnie was a powerful witch, or would be with the right training. Her line descended from the witch that brought her family to America to begin with and that line supposedly went back through all of history, all the way back to Delilah, the witch that tricked Samson.

"It is," Caroline finally answered. "But it's not what you think, really. I want to keep Elena alive as much as you do, if not more."

"Why should I believe you? This curse was placed on you, to keep you and your offspring from overtaking the world. Why wouldn't you want it lifted?"

"Because I don't want a world of vampires, Bonnie. I know now that it would mean destruction. Plus I have a debt to repay. Once I let this curse kill someone I loved, so I vowed never to let that happen again. I came here to protect Elena from all those who are out to break the curse. It can't be broken. If it is… there will be war."

Bonnie believed Caroline's words, but was still shocked by the knowledge that she had learned. "I will do anything to save Elena, and if I have to kill an original vampire to do it, I will."

"I don't doubt that. Actually, on that front I was hoping to ask you to look up a few things in those grimoires of yours. I need a locating spell…"

Bonnie kept Caroline's secret, only under the premise that if it needed to be said, she would force Caroline to tell Elena. She knew that she was going to be getting herself into more trouble, helping the original family, but she would do anything to protect her friends.

Caroline headed to school the next day with everything other than the classes on her mind. First there was Bonnie, and the fact that the witch could unveil her at any moment. Then there was the fact that Elijah still wanted Elena dead, paired with the fact that soon enough Lukas would be coming into town wanting the same thing. Although they had parted on civil terms, Caroline wasn't sure she could trust Elijah after all these years. But he was willing to work with her to go after Lukas first, to attempt to kill him in exchange for Elena's life. Only if that failed would he killed Elena instead.

Walking into school she saw a familiar blonde ponytail, streaked with pink and striped feathers ahead of her. Caroline noticed that the girl was wearing long sleeves despite the warm temperature. She moved quickly and walked up to Rebecca, trying to catch up with her. "Hey Becca," Caroline said kindly.

"What do you want Forbes?"

"I was just wondering what you were planning for lunch, I was thinking about going out to Subway, would you want to join me? Bring Tyler and Matt along?"

Rebecca stopped, holding her books to her chest and turned to look at Caroline. She tried to read the expression on Caroline's face and her face turned hard and cold. "Actually, Matt and I are not a couple, so no, we would not like to join you on your little date. Have fun with Lockwood though, since almost everyone else has around here."

Caroline's mouth dropped in shock. She knew that Rebecca could be mean, but she had never been extremely volatile before. Taking a deep breath she had to remind herself about the information that Nick had told her about Rebecca's personal life, and that the girl would only be trying to protect herself. "Tyler and I aren't together, we're just friends. I just know that you spend a lot of time with Matt and your brother so I just thought we all could go out sometime, that's all."

"Go find yourself some other friends, Caroline, I'm not interested in your charity."

Rebecca walked off and Caroline just tried to remain calm. She wasn't used to high school drama or politics and she was finding it all to be rather superficial. As she contemplated this she felt an arm wrap around her waist. Looking over she saw Tyler Lockwood.

"Hey," he said looking down at her.

As much as she enjoyed the feeling of an arm wrapped around her, Caroline took her hand and removed his arm from around her waist. It was a possessive gesture, one that Tyler did in front of the school with a very particular purpose. To tell everyone to back off of her. "Tyler," she said with a warning glance.

"Sorry, it was just a good idea at the time. Look I need your help."

"What for?"

"My first full moon is tomorrow night. I don't know what is going to happen and I'm totally freaking out. I went through my uncle's truck and I found a DVD, he taped himself… changing. But I can't seem to force myself to watch it."

Caroline frowned. She could see that he was scared, worried about what the change would bring. Werewolves had never really been a great friend to her in the past, but she could remember the fear of realizing you were something other than human. The least she could do is watch the video with him. "Look, bring the video over to my aunt's tonight. We'll watch it and make a game plan. It's going to be okay, really."

"Are you ever going to tell me how you know all this stuff?"

"If you're lucky," she said with a smirk, walking off to her first class.

* * *

**Coming up: The first full moon leaves one vampire scarred... Also Nick finds himself scheming up the way to bring Caroline into his arms. **

****As always, reviews are amazing and really do affect my writing. It was the brilliant reviews that I got on the last chapter that motivated me to write this one so quickly! Also feel free to message me here or on my tumblr (riverssongs) with any questions or comments for me!


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